Hyperdimension Neptunia: Cure for A Lonely Heart
by Sitting on the Event Horizon
Summary: A certain goddess in Gameindustri had thought that she could bury her loneliness in both work and quests. Recent events in her life that involves butting heads with the continent's worst criminal organizations would teach her that family isn't just being related to each other by blood.


Hi, everyone. Sitting on the Event Horizon here. For those wondering why I have not posted the Eighth chapter of Familiar Phases, well I've been having bouts of writer's block and to combat it, I've been making other stories in the hopes of getting back to my writing groove so to speak and this is one of my latest stories.

I would like to thank Nanya for both inspiring and even beta reading this story and thus, I would request that you read his stories if you wanted to have inspiration for a new story or just for simple enjoyment.

And with that out of the way, please at least give a glance at this story about a lonely young woman who would learn that she will never be alone, no matter how tried to push everyone away, a story I lovingly called...

* * *

**"Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine." **― Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright

**Hyperdimension Neptunia: Cure for A Lonely Heart **

A certain young woman of fourteen years old had looked at the paper she was holding and sighed before she broke into a run in the western direction. It was not as if the paper had brought her bad news or anything of the sort. In fact, it was the bearer of good news as the young woman had completed all the quests that she had asked from the Guildmaster…alone.

The said young woman was wearing a short-sleeved mini-hoodie with blue and purple lining. The said hoodie is closed by a button emblem with a large N and has two strings that look like controller plugs.

Underneath the hoodie is a dark purple dress lined with light purple that zips up from the front and has pockets on both sides along with white lining along the bottom. Both hoodie and dress were both covered in blue goo from fighting a multitude of dogoos and some other stuff from other monsters.

Blades of grass tend to stick on the light blue and striped thigh high socks with the most concentration of the blades on the frills at the top, all of which had been stuck at the same blue goo as the other items of clothing.

In fact, the purple colored parts including the N of her sneakers were also hard to see thanks to the amount of goo splashed on it.

Our heroine had already left Virtua Forest and was making her way back to the building at the center of the medium sized city that towered over the girl. People had greeted her, and she greeted them back with a joyous face.

Of course, the joyous face was nothing more than a façade for our heroine as it was only fair for the people to be courteous and even warm to their goddess whose duty was to keep them safe from powerful monsters and even more powerful enemies that ranged from busybody reporters to deities much like her.

Yes, I said deities as our heroine is none other than Neptune, the Console Patron Unit of Planeptune…CPU for short. For those wondering, why isn't she that cheerful and loud as she always was.

Well, that would be best left until I leave Neptune's point of view as she could still hear me, and we did agree on not telling her "life story" while she would still be in hearing distance.

"And don't you forget it, Mister Narrator." Neptune then added with a slight sneer. "I don't want to be reminded of my past any more than I need to."

Noted, Lady Neptune. Noted. Back to the story, the goddess had come upon a security checkpoint that was set up to keep monsters and bandits from entering the city, one of the four that were set up in each of the access to the city itself.

There were still cases of software pirating here and there, but none too serious as the police, military, and even Neptune herself would catch them within a week at most. One of the most serious threats was ASIC along with the Seven Sages and even Secret organization Affimax.

These people sometimes resort to force to achieve their goals and would only be taken out by the goddesses and even the candidates at times. It was during these encounters that Neptune would rather finish quickly then forget.

Just last week, two of the members of ASIC – CFW Judge and CFW Brave had surprised the military outpost stationed at the western portion of Planeptune and Purple Heart had immediately left her quest nearby to stop the two armored beings with Histoire calling for help.

It was about that time that CPU Green Heart and unknowingly Green Sister had answered the call. At first, Purple Heart had grudgingly accepted the offer from one of the other goddesses and this one being the closest Neptune could call an acquaintance amongst them as well.

The base itself was partially wrecked from the battle and the soldiers were told to take positions outside to keep the battle contained as much as possible. Even then, Purple Heart had chosen to fight in the base's field to keep the two from escaping.

"Purple Heart, you handle Brave." Green Heart told her fellow goddess who had barely evaded an axe slice from above and a sword thrust from the left as she had materialized her spear. "I'll handle big, bad, and ugly."

"Who're you calling Ugly, you big boobed bitch!?" Judge then said as he had turned to the newcomer. "I'll massacre you."

"Thanks, Green Heart." Purple Heart said in relief as she could handle Brave much easier alone than be ganged up. "I'm getting tired of the 'So frail' tirade for twenty minutes now."

"I too feel glad that we could now fight without any compunctions," Brave then added as both warriors had crossed swords. "En Garde."

Hidden in the nearby boxes of ammunition and supplies, Leanbox Goddess Candidate – Green Sister had clutched her bo staff even tighter with both hands, watching her sister parry or evade her opponent's clumsy slashes.

"I have to time this right so I could knock out that big man in armor," Green Sister told herself as she continued to peek. "I only have one chance."

"Cross Combination!" Purple Heart yelled before closing in on Brave while slashing at the robotic figure that could only parry it with his fiery blade. "Delta Slash."

For this one, Neptune had jumped away from her opponent before getting her sword to be sparkling with lightning energy then firing three lightning like blades at Brave. Once the first two had connected, a cube made of share energy had surrounded Brave. The final lightning blade had completed the triangle and the whole cube exploded, taking Brave along with it.

The mecha warrior had gotten enough and was forced to fall on his knees in pain as Neptune was certainly getting stronger than the last time they had clashed. "I forfeit."

Judge was surprised to see his fellow ASIC member taken down by a goddess. "Don't tell that you're frail too, Brave."

"I'm your opponent," Vert then said before starting off her own attack. "Rainy Ratnupura."

Green Heart immediately made a series of thrusts with her spear that managed to hit through Judge's weak spots, causing damage on the giant's body underneath his armor.

It was while Judge was dancing like a crazed belly dancer that Green Sister had gotten her chance. "This is for Big Sister Vert – Sky Fall!"

Unfortunately for Green Sister, Judge had recovered just in time and grabbed the little girl and her staff before she could bonk him on the head with her staff from above. "Now, now. It's not nice to hit persons of authority."

"Let her go!" Green Heart yelled with her spear's pointed end menacingly pointed at Judge's heart. "One wrong move and I'll tear your heart out…literally."

"Hah," Judge gloated, not noticing where Purple Heart has gone to as all of his attention were on the Leanbox goddess and candidate. "Not while I have your -"

The second ASIC member had let go of his hostage and went down for the count with Purple Heart revealed to have used the base of her sword's handle to knock out Judge. Green Heart had grabbed her sibling and pulled her away from the fallen criminal.

"And that's why you should always check your surroundings," Purple Heart said with a lazy drawl before reverting to Neptune. "Well, let's tie these two up and have them picked up by Planeptune's boys in purple."

"I'm not sure if it is really your idea in giving them purple bodysuits and black face masks," Green Heart then added while reverting back to Vert, CPU goddess of Leanbox. "They looked like that Phantom character in the comics."

"It adds to the mystique while chasing criminals and their new gadgets are quite helpful too," Neptune answered with a shrug. "I remember Linda yelling once that she doesn't like the laws of the jungle or ghosts who walk while being carried to a waiting police van."

"Wow, that was so cool!" Green Sister said before reverting to her human form. "I never knew that you could knock out a powerful criminal by just slamming your sword handle on his head."

"You did teach her common sense, right?" Neptune then asked Vert who looked embarrassed with a deadpan face. "Fights aren't measured in how strong your attacks are, but in how you use them."

"Well….I tried," Vert said while looking at her younger sister who was busy tying up the criminals with rope just as the Military Police arrived to arrest them. "She's just too enthusiastic with the fighting part of our lessons to figure out that even a simple strike on the head is enough to take an enemy down no matter how strong they are. She's actually managed to knock out all the other candidates with just one swing…although I did get an earful from both Blanc and Noire for the twins being knocked out cold or suffering a concussion with Uni getting a staff up where the sun doesn't shine when Bouquet had accidentally let go of her staff at the end of her swing."

"Ah, my sympathies then." Neptune gave it her hardest on not to laugh as that would ruin her grim and gritty reputation that she was beginning to privately enjoy. "If you want, I'll train her in between some quests. At least, I won't be alone all the time."

"I'd like that," Vert said with a relieved voice. "I thought you're jealous of not having a sister of your own."

"I still am," Neptune answered with a sigh as the criminals were loaded up to a blue van and sent to a maximum-security prison in Planeptune. "But you really don't have the time to train Bouquet with your 'busy' schedule and all."

"I'm not sure if you're complimenting or patronizing me," Vert said with a prominent frown. "Oh well, I'll give you a call when Bouquet would require some more tutoring."

"Thanks, I promise that I'll make her a better fighter." Neptune said before going HDD once again. "For now, adieu, sayonara, and all that jazz."

Purple Heart then took off in a burst of power before heading back to her basilicom to tackle the workload that she had to leave because of the ruckus.

-oOo-

Back to the present, Neptune hid a small smile by lowering her head as she had returned the salute of the police officers manning the checkpoint.

"Lady Neptune, allow us to bring you to the basilicom." The senior officer told the tired goddess. "It would be the least we could do for you."

"Thank you for the offer," the CPU answered with a grateful smile. "But I can still walk towards the basilicom by myself anyway. I still need you and the others to ensure that the people of Planeptune City are safe."

"Yes, Lady Neptune." The police officer said with a salute as he had raised the bar letting Neptune in. "By the way, Lady Histoire is asking for your presence in the Planeptune Research and Development section as well."

"Tell her that I'll be there in half an hour," Neptune answered with a sigh. "I still need to take a bath and change of clothes."

"Yes, Lady Neptune."

Our heroine then continued walking through the mostly empty sidewalks where delivery trucks and vans had made their routine deliveries under the blue and white store signs' glow. She still greeted the various delivery men and maintenance workers that she met along the way and raised their spirits with a good word of encouragement.

After walking for ten minutes as Neptune did know a lot of shortcuts from her previous passes of the city streets to avoid being mobbed, she finally arrived at the entrance of the basilicom. From there, she had ridden an elevator towards the main level.

From outside, the basilicom is the tallest building amongst the skyscrapers of Sega City. Its roof is rectangular shaped to accommodate the small house like structure that housed both the temple and the living quarters of the goddess along with a garden for social events.

Now, Neptune had gotten to the main floor where the guild headquarters was located. She had noticed the lines for the reception bars for the weapons and armor as seen on their emblems on top of their respective bars and instead headed for the central staircase.

She then headed for the office of the Quest Master who oversees giving quests for adventurers such as herself. Once arriving at the counter, Neptune then gave her completed form for the quests along with the items required for the collection quests.

By the time, our heroine had turned around. She was surprised to see Histoire floating right in front of her.

"Just go take your bath and change of clothes," the tome said with a disappointed voice upon smelling the odor of dogoo remains. "I'll wait for you at the lab in thirty minutes."

"Thanks, Histy." Neptune said with a bow before taking the elevator for her living quarters. "I'll be there soon."

Histoire then thanked the quest master and floated towards another elevator that she took down.

-oOo-

Thirty minutes later, Neptune herself had arrived at the lab where Histoire was waiting for her. The technician then led her to the wide space where the larger gadgets and even vehicles for the betterment of the nation.

On one side of the said space was a red car. From the rear, any car enthusiast would be reminded of an Audi R8 while anyone who look at it from the front would recognize the Lamborghini Gallardo with a touch of Qvale Mangusta all around.

Histy then approached Neptune and said. "Rather than trying to go HDD in order to go from place to place, we thought that you could use another mode of transportation. Let me introduce you to the G-6155 Interceptor."

"I remember an old game that has this," Neptune said while pushing her tongue back to its place. "So, this car can transform to a fast boat and an off-road vehicle while being armed."

"Yes," the tome answered with an enthusiastic nod. "Not to mention, it could also transform to a jet as well so you won't burn out shares that would be more useful in a fight."

"Thank you, Histy." Neptune had temporarily forgot that she was supposed to be standoffish as she enveloped the tome in a tight hug. "Of course, I'll take care of this beautiful piece of engineering since it would keep me fresh in a fight."

"That and we have new quests that would require yourself and this vehicle either here or in the other countries," one of the head researchers then added. "It would seem that some malcontents had gotten their hands on similarly modified or created vehicles to either assist in their pirating activities or to cause havoc in the highways."

"So, are the other countries doing the same?" The CPU then asked both her oracle and the research head. "I'm not sure if they would welcome such nefarious activities in their turf."

"They do," Histoire answered for them. "But none of them had achieved the same sophistication as ours. In some cases, as in Lowee, they had resorted to outlandish ways of combating the pirates that were minimally effective at best once countermeasures were introduced."

"And the others?"

"Both Lastation and Leanbox had adopted using former and present models of vehicles as bases for their own outlandish and somewhat primitive combat vehicles to fight the menace," the researcher then added with Histoire's approval. "But please be reminded that yours is the latest model as the rest of the Special Weapons and Tactics would be given older models for their own use. The reason being that chasing them in your HDD form would be dangerous because of the length of time required to even chase them would be much too long for you to remain in that form safely."

"You're right," Neptune admitted with a sigh. "And once I must revert back to my human form to rest up, then I would certainly lose them completely. Even then, thank you for giving me an extra tool for the new threats and please have it parked in the new garage as I would take it for a test drive tomorrow morning."

"Yes, Lady Neptune."

"Well then, I need to head back to my office to finish my paperwork before having lunch." Neptune said while turning around. "Thank you for giving me such a wonderful gift."

"Aren't you going to rest after having lunch, Neptune?" Histoire then asked as she had floated after the goddess. "You really need to rest every once in a while."

"I can't, Histy." The pink-haired heroine answered with a sigh as the pair headed to the elevator straight towards the basilicom's living quarters. "I have to train Bouquet later at three. I can take a needed nap after lunch, but that's it."

"I can give you a day off tomorrow," the oracle then added. "I believe that it's Uni's birthday tomorrow as well."

"No thanks," Neptune said as the pair had entered the elevator. "When I went to her party last year, nobody was there to even greet me or even give me the time of day. Besides, Miss Tsundere Heart must have forgotten to send me an invitation this time."

"That's true," the oracle said with a hung head. "And she even told me that we're invited to the bash three days ago too."

"Really?" Neptune's brows had knit at that statement. "And here I thought that she wanted us gone because of what happened last year."

"It wasn't your fault that the Seven Sages had to crash that garden party for Warechu to get that Monster Containment Disk and its Bit that served as its monster making machine in Lastation's Police HQ at about the same time," Histoire then added with a shrug. "Of course, the fact that it was you who had destroyed both items out of the limelight and was not even given credit for it was very rude in my honest opinion."

"Yeah," Neptune nodded in agreement just as the double doors had slid open once the elevator had stopped. "That's the other reason why I don't want to go. I'll send her an apology e-mail after I eat so she would understand that I can't go."

"I understand," the oracle said with a nod. "I think I'll prepare a quick tonkatsu ramen, so you won't be too full when you go out."

"Thanks," Neptune added while walking through the slightly messy living room. "Be back in ten."

-oOo-

In the basilicom of Leanbox, a certain pair of blonde sisters were telling each other goodbye….or at least they were supposed to be. In fact, the older blonde was smothering the younger one in the former's F cup size breasts partly hidden by a green and peach colored dress while crying that she would be left all alone.

"figh shish," the younger blonde's muffled yell was heard from the huge watermelons that our poor girl was being squished into. "Leff ho ov me!"

"Oh sorry," the older blonde said while dabbing her dark blue eyes with a handkerchief. "But I have to leave you alone with Miss Lonely Heart. Who knows what she would do to you?!"

"Don't be too dramatic, Vert." The younger blonde said with her arms crossed over her small chest that was covered by a light green dress that covered most of her body with slits for her legs. "I doubt she would kidnap me and keep me in her basilicom while treating me like the long-lost sister she wanted. Only a crazy person would do that or something similar, in fact."

-oOo-

Meanwhile in Hyper dimension, a loud sneeze was heard in Leanbox's basilicom. The blonde young woman who was at the time playing a massively multiplayer online game in a dark room had let go of her controllers and reached out for some napkins to wipe the snot off her nose and those that managed to get to her controllers or one of her three 21 inch monitor's screens.

Of course, the box of napkins is also there for another reason, but that would best explained in another story, this time within the Hyper dimension, if you know what I mean.

"I seem to be getting the sniffles," the CPU of Leanbox said after throwing the used napkin to the nearby waste basket. "I think I need to turn down the air conditioning a bit. I wish those Neptunes would be back to warm me up too."

-oOo-

Back in Planeptune's basilicom, Neptune had finished her shower and had now changed clothes. She and Histy then had lunch before they had rested on the couches just chatting with each other once Neptune had sent her e-mail to Noire.

"By the way, what did happen about eight months ago?" The oracle then said suddenly as she had remembered something. "I was told that the whole parliament went bonkers and had to order a manhunt just to look for you as you were gone for three days. Even the guilds and the other goddesses were involved."

"Oh that," Neptune sighed as she was reminded of a nightmare that she herself had inadvertently started. "I made a stupid wish on a weird artifact that I had gotten in a dungeon back then which backfired badly. Thankfully, once a kind angel named Nepgear had fixed that artifact, I got everything fixed in return. Not to mention, Hyperdimension me is good company as is your Hyperdimension self."

The Planeptune CPU's face then broke into a smile as another memory came to play. "After that, I tried another wish and I got you. Wish well granted in my honest opinion."

"Thanks for that," Histoire's face was as red as an apple by then. "I thought I'll forever be trapped in that sealed tome."

"You're welcome, Histy." Neptune said with a genuine smile that she only gave to her trusted friend and oracle. "You're very much welcome."

"By the way, what happened to the artifact and who's Nepgear?"

"Nepgear is who my sister would have been if not for that accident with the sharicite," The CPU answered wistfully. "She's a bit of a tech nut, but really good with electronics and weapons. A good girl, but if left alone would go mad scientist. As for the power glove, I kept it in the vault to keep anyone else from using it for their own ends."

"Ah," the oracle said before nodding in agreement. "Well, I guess it's time for me to get back to work so you could get that nap."

"Thanks, Histy." Neptune said while setting the alarm clock to wake her up by 2:45 PM then laid down on the couch. "See you at dinner."

"Yes, I'll even prepare your favorite pudding." Histy said as she floated back to the elevator. "Good hunting."

-oOo-

While our heroine was taking her nap, a certain light green Osprey with Vert's face painted on the tail was approaching Virtua Forest from the direction of Leanbox. Inside were the members of OG division with Mister Chief being team leader along with the pilot and co-pilot.

The said Osprey had gone over the ocean then over the plains and even the city of Planeptune itself before its wings had tilted to allow its propeller blades act as helicopter blades as the hybrid aircraft had landed vertically.

Once there the OG division had spread out to protect the vehicle from monsters that was roaming around the area. All of them had their assault rifles locked and loaded with their special guest also asleep in the plane.

Vert had watched their progress by means of her tracking satellites that followed the Interrogate Friend or Foe devices of the transport in the confines of her basilicom's command center.

"It's still early," Vert mumbled to herself as she slowly moved the drone from the still open door to take a look around the "practice area". "Neptune must still be asleep or something. Even then, she'd better not make a move on my little sister."

By 2:45 PM, the alarm had rung with Neptune grateful for getting a nap. She then opened the glass door towards the garden outside and transformed to Purple Heart. With a burst of power pushing her forward, Purple Heart headed towards their meeting place with Bouquet.

It did not take her long to get to Virtua Forest and even see the transport aircraft that Vert had certainly used to ferry the kid. She then landed near the plane's nose and even greeted Mister Chief.

The armored man then put a sign that said. "Lady Neptune, you are five minutes early."

"I'd rather be early than late, Mister Chief." Neptune answered with a shrug while transforming back to human form. "So, where's Bouquet?"

"Here," came a voice from just beyond the Ospray's door. "Give me a minute."

To Neptune's surprise, it was not Bouquet who had emerged from the Osprey but Green Sister. Unlike before the little girl was wearing a green bodysuit with white trim drawn diagonal to said bodysuit from the shoulder to her waist. Her hair had also changed to lime green while being long enough to go past her shoulders in a single lush ponytail.

A light elbow length brown leather glove with leaf like designs was seen clutching the railing while dark green boots with splotches of white were seen going down the stairs.

"I'm ready for our lesson, Miss Neptune." Green Sister said with confidence as a halberd and pike had materialized in her gloved hands. "Teach me on how to be as good as Vert is."

"First things first, power down." Neptune ordered with a sigh. "We don't need to use any more shares than necessary. Secondly, our lesson for today doesn't need for us to use force in the first place."

"Eh?!" Green Sister said before reverting to just plain Bouquet. "Why?"

Now the bodysuit has been replaced by a fluffy green dress with flowers of different colors sewn onto it. Her gloves had also changed to silk evening gloves that were pink in color. Finally, her shoes had changed from boots to flat heeled shoes while retaining its color and design.

"It's because just attacking like a madwoman would end up with someone getting hurt, whether it would be me, Mister Chief and his men, or even you." The Planeptune CPU answered with crossed arms. "As such, I am going to teach you self-control. You will only attack those that I tell you to and, in the manner that I will tell you as well."

"Aww, that's just like the boring training that Vert and Miss Cave teach me every day after breakfast."

"Well then, then you won't have to ask me a lot of questions then?" Neptune added while uncrossing her arms. "For now, I think I'll show you what I mean."

Neptune raised her hand, palms up as if waiting for something to appear. Bouquet was surprised to see a bo staff much like hers materializing in her teacher's hand.

"I actually wanted a new weapon since using a katana gets old after a while," Neptune said in explanation. "Now, let's start on that the open field over there."

The said open field was about 200 meters away from where the Osprey was parked. The two young women then walked towards the said field with two of the OG field agents following them from a respectable distance.

Once there, the CPU then pointed at a dogoo that was approaching them. "Alright, we'll start with him. Use the attacks that both Cave and Vert had taught you and remember to grip the staff tightly, so it won't fly off."

Bouquet then started with basic attacks like thrusts and overhead strikes at the dogoo at Neptune's orders. But due to her level – 5, the dogoo (level 10) was quite tough to kill and was pretty playful to boot.

Eventually, the monster died but not before Bouquet had learned a hard lesson on dodging an attack especially when she was told to. The blonde had hated having to hang back and let the monsters in virtual reality come to her and thus would attack head on instead.

"Good, good." Neptune said while observing the whole battle for the past five minutes now while fending off the other enemies with her own staff until they left. "Now, let's find another dogoo and use whatever you have learned just now. Once you've learned the basics enough that you could do it with your eyes closed, we'll go look for tougher enemies."

"Wait, I need to level up so I can defeat them…right?"

"Correct," the CPU was now clapping. "And I'm sure you can do it once you've gotten the basics down pat. If you like, we can look for similarly low leveled enemies so you can learn and level up at the same time."

"That makes sense," Bouquet then said while taking a few breaths of air. "Five-minute break please."

"Granted, young padawan."

The training session continued until it was 5:30 PM in which Neptune had told her student to stop. By then Bouquet had reached level 10 and was led deeper into the forest while still being under the watchful eye of her bodyguards and the CPU herself, not to mention the pesky drone that Neptune had been observing the whole time as well out of the corner of her eye.

"Ah, you have gotten much better." Neptune had given her student a head pat that Bouquet liked. "Now tell your sister that you would be ready for mid- level quests soon and that she should get out a little more."

-oOo-

In the control room of Leanbox's security complex, Vert had slammed her hands on the control panel in front of her upon seeing the other CPU giving her sister a head pat. "Don't play into her hand, Bouquet. She'll make you her sister for sure."

All eyes were immediately on her as the true reason for the covert surveillance on Green Sister was revealed. Chief of Security then told an aide to attend to the goddess and assure her that Mister Chief would not let Purple Heart kidnap Bouquet.

The aide did so and even escorted Vert back to her living quarters for some rest with the maids taking over.

Once brought to the common room, Vert then dismissed the aide. "Inform me of any developments regarding Green Sister, understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am." The young man answered with a salute while standing straight. "By your leave."

"Granted."

The young aide then left the living quarters of the basilicom and returned to the security complex nearby. Vert meanwhile had asked for orange juice and some foie gras.

-oOo-

With her training for the day complete, Bouquet had gotten inside the aircraft with Neptune transforming to Purple Heart and coming in front of the drone that was about to go inside the aircraft as well. The OG members had also double-timed back to their transport while ensuring that the area was still safe and secure with Master Chief entering last.

"Vert, I don't like being spied upon." Purple Heart said clearly to the drone's microphones with crossed arms. "If you're scared that I'll take your sister away, then prove to me and everyone else that you deserve her even more. I'll admit that I envy all three of you for even having sisters, but I won't stoop down to Abnes' level when it comes to that."

Purple Heart then flew away back to her basilicom to the east so she could have a quiet dinner with Histoire before sleeping early. The plane now with the drone on board had also taken off and headed back to Leanbox to the south-east.

-oOo-

As promised, the aide had returned to the Leanbox basilicom in order to report what Neptune had told them. Vert could only sigh before saying. "Lonely Heart doesn't miss much, doesn't she?"

Seeing the perplexed look given to her by the aide, she then added. "Neptune did have a sixth sense when it comes to danger and so she knew that we were watching her and Bouquet the whole time. Still, it's best to call off the surveillance since I can now trust her in keeping my sister safe from harm so Operation: Butterfly is now terminated"

"Yes, Lady Vert."

-oOo-

At about the same time in Lastation's basilicom, a certain young woman wearing a maid-like black top with golden trimmings and white frills around her upper arm and chest had just stood up from her desk and stretched her arms and even legs in the privacy of her office.

In the course of her stretching. the frilly skirt that is white with black trimming that goes down to her lower thigh that she wore was also partially visible from behind the desk.

Once she had finished stretching, the young woman then sat down once again and took a look at her desktop's LCD screen. She then noticed the little notification box at the lower right corner of the screen and clicked it.

She then learned that Neptune had sent her an e-mail regarding her not coming to Uni's party tomorrow. 'Who does she think she is? I was going to actually hang out with her since Uni has more than enough friends to hang around with for the whole party.'

The said young woman then opened the e-mail and read its message:

Dear White Heart,

I am sorry, but I cannot attend the birthday party of your dear sister- White Sister tomorrow as I have to test drive a prototype of an experimental vehicle alongside my daily routines in the office and in the dungeons.

I still wish White Sister a happy birthday and may she have more birthdays to come.

Best Regards,

Purple Heart

Console Patron Unit of Planeptune

"That…that…" the young woman sputtered as the choice words she would say did not really fit the person that sent the e-mail save for two with her fists clenched in barely suppressed anger over the table. "Lonely Heart!"

"Sis," another young woman came in the office, her clothing almost identical to the older one. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" The older woman said while turning to speak to the newly arrived visitor. "Oh sorry, Uni. It's just that Neptune had the gall to rename us because of our hair color once we transformed in this e-mail."

"Oh that," the girl now revealed to be Uni or Black Sister, Goddess Candidate of Lastation then said with a slight giggle. "I remember having that conversation with both Ram and Rom about last month. It was Ram who said that we should be called both White Heart and White Sister respectively because of our hair, Noire."

"And the others?" The young woman that was now revealed to be Noire also known as Black Heart, CPU of Lastation said with raised eyebrows at how three different people would arrive to the same conclusion while meeting each other very seldomly. "What do they think about them?"

"Well, Miss Neptune is still Purple Heart coz let's admit it, her hair **is** purple." Uni then added with a shrug. "Miss Blanc would be Blue Heart with Rom being Blue Sister since they do look alike even in goddess form and Ram would be Pink Sister obviously. Finally, Miss Vert and Bouquet would also fit as Green Heart and Green Sister."

"I don't think Blanc would sit well being called Blue Heart," Noire then said with a shake of her head. "As for the rest, I don't think they wouldn't mind especially since it was the twins who even thought of it."

"Still, I'm curious as to why she wouldn't come tomorrow." The CPU Candidate then mused as she sat down on one of the chairs in front of the desk. "I know that we didn't talk to her much last year since we've both have a lot of VIPs to assure of their hardware specifications and controlled monster numbers, so I wanted to apologize for her during that tech event if not for Seven Sages and their goons."

"Yeah," Noire's voice had gotten softer as it was she who had invited Neptune then ignored her twice. "I wanted to apologize for that too and for not giving her credit in foiling their real plan. Maybe I'll give a visit once I've had the time."

"That would be nice," Uni said with a calm voice. "I've heard that she only visits us and the other countries in official meetings and conventions and she's always out whenever we happen to be in Planeptune."

"That settles it," Noire said as she stood up with her red eyes blazing with fire. "I'll head to Planeptune next week."

"Yeah, you do that." Uni added while rolling her red eyes. 'You told me that two months ago and yet you still backed out.'

"Is that a tint of rebellion I hear in your voice?" Noire then added in a stern yet teasing voice. "How about you help me with my paperwork right now? I've gotten a lot of proposals from various game makers and even the police and military and I just can't handle them all alone."

"Yes, Big Sister." Uni said with a defeated tone. "I'll use this chair."

Both Lastation sisters then proceeded with the paperwork that were given to them with Lastation's Oracle – Kei Junguji handling the rest.

-oOo-

The following day, Neptune had gotten up once the alarm clock had rung at around seven. She did set it for six am before so she could have an early breakfast followed by work and quests only for the household staff (and Histoire) to sabotage the poor clock(s) to ring only at seven in the morning.

The CPU grudgingly agreed that she needed an extra hour's sleep as she sleeps at eleven in the evening anyway. Besides, even if she secretly bought a new clock, they would still sabotage it while she was not looking.

The said bedroom was actually simple as our protagonist is not the type who would go all out for extravagance. There were game consoles from the other countries as well as Planeptune's own pride and joy. But Neptune only plays them whenever she had time and that is almost never.

The said bedroom was well-lighted from the large picture window at Neptune's left side with the right-side wall having a large picture of Planeptune's successful game – Sonico the Hedgehog along with pictures of Neptune and even Histoire posing for pictures in some tech expo events.

The remaining walls have paintings of landscape that was made by various artists to brighten up the room a bit. The bed had also faced the door leading to the hallway so Neptune could easily flop onto it with the wall towards the bed's right having a door leading to the private bathroom that she uses to freshen up or just rest in the bathtub.

Speaking of which, Neptune had gone to the bathroom and freshened up before taking a bath so she could put on one of her clothes and head down to eat breakfast.

-oOo-

Down below in the garage where the Interceptor was now parked, mechanics, auto electricians, and even programmers had gotten in some last-minute adjustments to the vehicle's mechanical and electronic systems along with their software.

"Joe, have you checked if the GPS receiver is synched to the satellite system?" One of the men had asked his fellow during a routine check of the car's navigation system. "It was off by a few degrees yesterday since the dish had gotten rattled during road tests."

"Yeah, Greg." The other technician answered as he was fiddling with one of the buttons in the dashboard. "I just did ten minutes ago, and that readjustment was perfect with full synchronicity."

"Glad to hear it," the sandy blond tech replied as he had finished with his own tests. "Lady Neptune is going to take the Interceptor for an actual road test around eight. The problem is, we've also been getting news of a heist just an hour ago in Lastation and the thieves are heading right to our border."

"That's rough," the other tech with chestnut hair then said. "At least, this one's weapon systems are fine and could easily be armed if and when she would be needed for actual combat. More so since Lady Black Heart is said to be actually leading the chase units in her country's own version of the Interceptor."

"Now that's really bad since a CPU was called upon to give chase," the first tech then said. "Must be quite a treasure for Lady Black Heart to join in the chase."

"Yeah."

-oOo-

In the dining room, both Neptune and Histoire were eating. It was then that the latter had received a call from Blanc. The CPU of Lowee was not in her basilicom, but rather what seemed to be a sophisticated car that was familiar to Neptune.

"Histoire, we are currently chasing a truck and its escorts towards your border station." The brown-haired goddess was telling the Planeptune oracle as she could not see Neptune who was eating behind the screen that she had using to speak with Histoire. "Tell them not to engage or even fire upon the truck as its escorts are armed and dangerous. We've already lost a lot of police and military units who tried to stop them using handguns and assault rifles only."

"I understand," the oracle said with a nod. "Noire had issued the same request thirty minutes ago. "I'll send some of our SWAT teams based nearby to intercept the malcontents with Neptune herself assisting Noire at the southeastern portion of Planeptune. Although, that's not the same vehicle that you had used for these cases before."

"This one's our prototype as the last batch were next to useless in combatting these pirates," Blanc said while keeping an eye on the road. "I believe Noire had gotten her hands on a gray Aston Martin V12 Vanquish as her vehicle of choice. She thinks that having the classiest car amongst us with plenty of firepower with her underlings getting the customized assault vehicles would make her look cooler to the people."

"I'm beginning to fear what Vert would choose as her own vehicle knowing her penchant for being badass," Neptune said to herself. 'Speak of the devil…"

"Histoire, I need permission once again to enter Planeptune airspace." Vert then said once a second screen had opened up in front of the oracle. "Neptune is behind me, isn't she?"

"Yes, it would not behoove me if you could also talk to me even if it is only through communicators." Neptune said with a prominent frown as she moved to the position behind Histoire. "But enough of that, why are you entering our airspace?"

"We are in pursuit of a van that had sneaked onto Planeptune's harbor and is on its way towards the western coast now," Vert then explained to the other goddesses and oracle. "It seems that all of our pirate friends are making their way there as well."

"That would make sense as the van I'm pursuing is going west," Noire then said as a third screen had popped up on over the table facing both Planeptune CPU and Oracle. "Oh hi, Neptune."

"Hello, Noire." Neptune said with slight smile seeing the how the Lastation goddess suddenly brightened up. "Since I'm done eating, I'll be in the highways as well hoping to get any of those vans."

"I'm following a truck actually," Blanc deadpanned. "But it has a lot of escorts composed of motorcycles and cars."

"I'm following a van as well," Noire then added. "Its escorts are mostly motorcycles and reversed trikes though. How about yours, Vert?"

"Mine seemed to be a van as well," Vert answered in the airwaves. "Its escorts were left behind and were now leading my pursuit team on a wild goose chase all over the island with me forced to use a Hercules in order to get to the mainland in a hurry."

"Neptune, I'll have you meet up with Noire as Vert may end up with Blanc if my hunch is right." Histoire then told her ward of sorts. "I noticed a strange cargo ship in our western coast that seemed to be moving in circles three days ago. I had taken the time to calculate where it would be by now and its location is where I calculated it to be- at the portion of the Western Planeptune Coastal Highway that juts out to the sea."

"I'm going," Neptune turned around and ran towards the elevator towards her basilicom's personal garage. "Keep me posted everyone."

"Will do."

-oOo-

Neptune had gotten to her car and pushed the start button that started the Interceptor before the gate leading outside had opened. Neptune then engaged the first gear and led the car out to the streets.

The interceptor then headed towards the Southern Planeptune Coastal Highway were Noire was also heading as her prey had just obliterated her country's and Planeptune's border stations with missiles during the chase. Noire's own Vanquish trading fire with the cycles and trikes with her machine guns.

'I hope Neptune would be here soon,' the Lastation CPU thought while switching to missiles to get rid of two of the annoying bikes. 'Once it gets near Planeptune City, I'll probably lose it in traffic.'

-oOo-

Up north, Blanc was also getting irritated with the cars and bikes that were blasting her Knight Industries Two Thousand with bullets that would only make sparks that temporarily freaked out the Lowee CPU more than anything else.

Even spikes did not work as KITT's tires never run flat. In response, Blanc had fired machine gun rounds or missiles to whittle down the annoying enemies. As it was, only two bikes had gone down with one of the cars trying to ram the chasing black sports car.

Blanc only pushed the Turbo Boost button to avoid the kamikaze enemy that exploded behind the now airborne car while still being peppered by machine gun rounds and even rifle grenades.

"Miss Blanc, allow me to aim the missiles to cease this constant rain of bullets." KITT then told his owner/driver. "Of course, I won't kill the henchmen only knock them off the road."

"I'd rather finish 'em off," the brunette CPU tried to argue but relented. "Alright, the less enemies, the better."

Missiles were launched from KITT's launchers in its hood before detonating near the bunched-up cars and bikes thus forcing them off the road by the explosive force it made.

"Go, KITT go." Blanc then said while putting more weight on the accelerator to catch up with the truck and its remaining escorts that were making a run for it. "We can't lose them now."

-oOo-

"Lady Vert, we are now clear to drop you on the highway." The C-130 Hercules co-pilot had told the Leanbox CPU that was sitting inside her car, for want of a better word. "We just need to go down to within forty feet for the landing to perfect. Please pardon the bumpy landing."

"It's alright," Vert answered in the radio. "I have enough harnesses and this vehicle has more than enough shock absorbers to handle the roughness."

"I copy," the co-pilot then added. "Lowering to forty feet, Ma'am."

"Roger that," Vert said with a smile as she had turned on the vehicle's own starter button. "Once you've reached fifty feet, open the ramp so the boys here could undo the cargo locks and chains and I could get down."

"Yes, Ma'am."

'It's a good thing that our Predator drone is still on the job,' the Leanbox's CPU thought as everyone had counted down to the release of the special cargo. 'Still, that van seems to be on its way to meet with the convoy that Blanc is chasing now. No signs of escorts either.'

"One," the loadmaster then yelled in his mike. "Now, Lady Vert."

The Leanbox CPU then engaged the reverse gear and gently pushed the accelerator. The car then backed out of the ramp before falling in a gentle slope as it went in free fall.

Once the Batmobile had landed roughly in the highway, Vert had bounced a bit in her cockpit while clutching the steering wheel and waited for the bouncing to stop.

As soon as the Batmobile had stabilized itself, Vert had changed gears once again and pushed the accelerator. Unlike the other cars, the Batmobile's jet turbine engine had roared and started the pursuit of the pirate van.

-oOo-

Neptune's Interceptor had reached the highways, mostly because of traffic either being rerouted or the people being told to stay home once Histoire had broadcasted the warning on the Emergency channel.

The red sports car had zoomed east at a steady eighty kilometers an hour in the hopes of catching the pirates in a pincer movement or so Neptune hoped. A half hour later, a blue van that was surrounded by motorcycles of different colors and makes was seen running at a hundred kilometers per hour in the other direction.

Seeing that Planeptune had brought up their own goddess to hunt them down, the motorbikes had showered the approaching car with bullets and rockets. Neptune had fired back using the same weaponry, but with more advanced target acquisition systems thus she was able to lock on two of the bikes and took them out with rockets.

The van and some of its lead escorts had tried to pass the Interceptor by, but side looking rockets had disabled two more bikes with the Vanquish now appearing from the curve to join in the chase as the Interceptor had made a bootlegger's turn in a squeal of wheels.

Unfortunately, even more armed and armored cyclists had joined in the action and thus both the Interceptor and Vanquish had to empty their weapons to take them out of commission.

By then, the van had lost all of its escorts and was now weaving all over the road to keep the chasing cars from passing it by.

"Noire, distract that van's driver by trying to pass it on the right." Neptune then told her fellow CPU in the communications screen. "I'm gonna us a PIT maneuver on this guy."

"A pit what?!"

"I'll explain later," the Planeptune CPU then added. "Just do it, since we can't do much else without weapons."

"Alright, alright." The Vanquish had taken the lead and sped up as if to overtake the green van on the shoulder while Noire was still speaking. "Now what?"

Now, I do this!" Neptune suddenly turned to the right, causing the Interceptor's front bumper to hit the now slowed down van's rear as it tried to block the luxury car from passing. "Eat PIT!"

The van was bumped enough to lose control at 75 kilometers per hour as the road suddenly entered a bunch of curves. In seconds, the van went off-road and skidded to a stop.

Both Neptune and Noire had slowed their own vehicles to a stop just five meters from the van when its driver – Linda the Underling had gotten out, holding three discs.

"Turn those tin cans to scrap, boys." She yelled throwing three discs into the space between the van and the two cars. "While I make my escape."

The three discs had turned to three dragons in full armor – Dragon Knight. Immediately, both goddesses had gotten out of their cars and transformed.

The dragons had run towards the cars before readying their High Slash attacks. Both Purple and Black Heart had stopped them with their blades then kicked them as far away from the cars as possible while looking at the now departing van.

Linda even yelled back at them. "You'll never catch me, you stupid goddesses. Not when I shift to maximum overdrive."

As the van was about to speed away with Linda now shifting gears quickly to get to overdrive, a single shot had burst the front left tire and this time, Linda was forced to jump out of the vehicle as it careened out of control.

She then saw two medium length stock covered legs belonging to one of the Guild's intelligence agents – IF who had also heard the emergency call and was told to assist the goddess. As Underling was promptly arrested, she muttered to herself. "I should have gone for the turbos instead."

Far behind her, both monsters were defeated with both goddesses now heading north to help out with both Vert and Blanc.

-oOo-

Speaking of the other two goddesses, their pursued vehicles had met at an intersection towards the Western Planeptune coastal road. As it were, more escort vehicles were shot down by the newly arrived Batmobile that converted on the fly to battle mode thus KITT could now keep up with the escaping truck and van.

The chase had led to the geological point that Histoire had calculated earlier with the cargo ship now in sight as the land was starting to slope down. It was here that both chased vehicles had stopped with something coming out of the truck. Both vehicles were then prepared to leave soon after.

Both Blanc and Vert had quickly recognized the roadblock as Copypaste, a robotic lackey of Seven Sages and bragged that he was the strongest of the criminals.

The two goddesses had gone down their vehicles as their goddess form would be of much better use against this massive mobile roadblock.

"I was hoping that you'd send the Candidates to deal with me," Copypaste then half-joked. "It would have been much more fun."

"It would be much more fun…if we slice and dice you like the piece of scrap metal that you really are," Blanc said before transforming to White Heart. "You just cost us time in getting your latest shipment on ice and neither of us is happy about that."

"I'll have to agree with Blanc," Vert the said while transforming to Green Heart. "Now, both Black and Purple Hearts is in the lead for successfully stopping your other shipment in the south. You'll be perfect as our punching bag."

"Enough talk!" Copypaste was getting irritated with both being insulted and Linda mucking up the works again. "Let's fight."

"Alright," Blanc said as she and Vert had charged in with weapons ready. "Say your prayers, Copypaste."

-oOo-

Both Neptune and Noire had taken a short cut to catch up to the fleeing criminals. Vert had also sent a submarine to sink the suspicious cargo ship in case neither her nor Blanc would be able to reach the pirates from the north.

The said short cut was an off-beaten path that was made by travelers who were forced to divert during construction or repair of the T-intersection that would link both highways.

Neptune knew this path as she did pass through this whenever she had joined the contractors that Histoire had hired to construct or repair the highways for inspection and it was she who led Noire and her car through the bumps towards the other highway.

As such, they had caught up with the convoy and forced them to stop by blocking the road with their own cars, themselves in HDD form standing in front of the vehicles.

Both van and truck had gotten off-road only to see both KITT and the Batmobile now giving chase. None of them knew of KITT's Auto-Cruise ability with the Batmobile also possessing a similar ability that was now given the command to follow KITT.

With Purple Heart and Black Heart also giving chase in the air, both pirate vehicles were forced to stop with their drivers coming out of their vehicles with their hands in the air.

-oOo-

Back with the battle, Copypaste had slashed Blanc while using his other arm to defend from Vert's Inbetween Spear and Spiral Break combination.

"You bastard!" Blanc yelled while sliding backwards on the asphalt. "Move your ass, Thunder Tits. Getter Ravine!"

Vert quickly moved to the right once the flow of jutting rocks had hit the robot hard and making him tilt a bit. But Blanc was not finished with him yet. "Have a taste of my Hard break!"

This time, Blanc had charged at the large enemy while making twelve hits within the tornado that lifted Copypaste off the ground before he was slammed back on the ground.

This was followed by Blanc who then slammed her ax on the heavy metal villain upwards sending him flying before spinning once and slamming her ax on the concrete cracking it as magma was seen glowing underneath the cracks as a small hill sprouted from the ground hitting Copypaste and launching him in the air for the second time. "There's more where that came from, Copypaste."

Blanc then spun once again before throwing her axe like a boomerang, hitting the large robot villain twelve times before coming back to its owner's hands. For the finale, Blanc then jumped in the air for a spinning dive before swinging her ax at the large enemy that had landed roughly on the ground then flying off.

Copypaste's eyes were swirling at the massive pain that he felt after the successive attacks with Vert putting out huge handcuffs and clamps for the said enemy so he could not be moving anytime soon unless he was hauled by the boys in blue from Lowee that were well prepared for him.

"T-thanks, Thunder Tits." Blanc said to her fellow goddess as they both de-transformed while waiting for their cars to return. "You've been a great help."

"Don't mention it," Vert said with a shrug. "Just chalk it up to our goddess codes or something since it's our job to stop these guys."

After waiting for thirty minutes, both KITT and the Batmobile had arrived with the Vanquish and Interceptor joining them. Once the vehicles including those from the police had arrived, Vert then heard the report from her submarine's captain that the cargo ship was also captured and was now towed towards Planeptune Harbor before the police of both Leanbox and Planeptune would take over.

"Well, if it isn't the lovebirds…" Blanc then joked once both Neptune and Noire had gotten out of their cars. "Here to announce your wedding date."

"We would if we did," Neptune answered with a straight face, before Noire would raise a fuss. "Still, thanks for helping us out in arresting these pirates. Sure, except for Linda and Copypaste here, these guys are just small fry."

"Actually, these pirates had either stolen or carried pirated goods in our countries so it's also beneficial for us as well." Vert then answered. "I'm sure that this caper would raise our shares significantly."

"Absolutely," Noire jumped in the conversation. "Not to mention, these missions are actually fun and exciting, and I can even give this to Uni…"

All eyes were on Neptune whose expression did not even change. "I don't mind if I work with the Candidates although I think Uni is the only one who could get a student license."

"Yes, but I don't want either Rom or Ram behind the wheel anyway." Blanc added with a grimace. "But yes, it is exhilarating in its own way."

"I'm sure it would make for a good spy or police novel, Blanc." Vert then said with a smirk.

"Maybe it would make a nice MMOFPS with a driving module," Blanc shot back. "I'm sure you'll make a game out of it and even play it until the wee hours of the morning."

Neptune quickly put herself in between the two goddesses before they could come to blows. "Now, now. Sheath the claws, girls. That would certainly look bad in front of the press and here they come now."

Both goddesses had turned away from each other and smiled at the approaching media persons. Noire then elbowed Neptune and told in a stage whisper. "Thanks for the save. I'm not going to be here if those two have their catfight."

"Same here," Neptune "whispered" back. "Let's just put on our best face then leave once they've lost interest in us. I've still got some paperwork to do before dinner."

"So, do I," the Lastation goddess added with a sigh. "I was hoping to crash in your place before heading home so I could get some needed rest. I'll give Uni a call, so she won't wait too long for me."

"I wouldn't mind," Neptune then added with a shrug. "But I would now apologize for not being a good hostess as I don't have a lot of drinks and snacks for anyone other than Histy and myself."

"That's cool," Noire said with a sigh. "Even then, I'd like to apologize for what Uni and I did before. It was rude of us to do so."

"Nah, I'm cool with that." Planeptune's goddess answered with a shrug. "You were both incredibly busy that time, so I don't mind it much. Histy is peeved at my non-mention for taking out Ware-chu though."

"That's why I'm giving you full credit for our take down earlier," the black-haired twin tailed goddess then admitted. "Which is true, by the way as I wasn't able to stop them while they were still in my country."

"Actually, I'm giving full credit to Guild agent IF for the take down as she was crucial in stopping Linda earlier but thanks."

Once the press did arrive, all four goddesses had given their smiling interviews to the various press people that raised their shares a lot for the next few weeks.

-oOo-

A day later in Lowee's basilicom, Blanc could not help but complain at Financier, her maid at the rampant pirate activities at the latest debacles using armed and armored vehicles that would cause havoc in the highways and even in the city streets.

"Not to mention, our first batch of anti-pirate vehicles had failed thus the rest of the nations had gotten first blood in the drive against the pirates." Blanc added with a sigh. "It feels like Neptune is getting all the breaks as the first two successful take downs of pirate smuggling had to happen in Planeptune although all of us had a hand in it."

"It is puzzling as to why they chose to make their rendezvous in Planeptune's west coast rather than our coasts or even Leanbox's and Lastation's," Financier did comment on that. "It may be that Neptune's navy isn't that active or are easily evaded by that tramp freighter."

"Considering that Planeptune's navy is the most advanced naval forces we have in Gameindustri," the Lowee goddess then gave her counterpoint. "They would easily do the same with the rest of us. It would seem that this is the work of that super hacker – Annonydeath. If there is only a way that we could track him down and stop his operations for good, then our work would certainly be a lot easier."

"Yes, indeed." The maid said with a bow. "If it may please you, Lady Blanc but Miss Chika had taken the time to bring Miss Rom and Miss Ram to the amusement park for unknown reasons."

"It is weird that Chika would actually do something for me unless it has something to do with Vert," Blanc then mused. "Still having taken both of my twin sisters out to enjoy themselves is good news as I don't have enough time to bring them there myself. Speaking of which, did the twins do any pranks or something similar while I was gone."

"Only minor ones, Lady Blanc." The green-haired maid answered with a respectable bow. "Nothing too serious for you to worry about."

"Good," the brunette goddess of Lowee added with a nod. "Please advise me on when they would come back. I wanted to talk with Chika as well."

"Yes, milady."

-oOo-

After Blanc had finished her paperwork for the day, two twin brunette girls that was followed by an exhausted young blonde woman had arrived in the basilicom.

The first girl had her brown hair go past the shoulders of her pink overcoat with white puffballs, a blue handbag, and a ribbon. Her head was covered by a white and pink hat that matched her clothing with a pink rectangle in the center, just above her pink eyes.

She also wore white tights and shoes that also match her dress in terms of design.

"Ram, slow down." A second young girl who seemed to be the first one's twin said with a huff. "W-we can't keep up."

The second girl was considered by many to be Blanc's mini-me in both looks and personality. Her attire was similar to her twin, but the color is blue not pink with a pink handbag and her hat was also blue and white hat. As for her leg wear, she wore white tights and shoes that match her dress in design.

The last one was actually a young woman with long green hair that tied by a green and black ribbon to create a ponytail in the back. Her usual clothing was composed of a stylish black mini dress with black bows on both sides and long frills draping off both sides with a bright green coloring under them. All of them had accentuated her sexy figure.

Her legs were covered by black and thigh high socks and were accompanied by matching black heels with purple bows in the center.

The trio had passed the guards who only sighed and apologized to their guest and continued on towards Blanc's office.

The CPU of Lowee did not even stand up from her chair as she was told by intercom of the arrival of her sisters and their nanny of the day. "Did you all have fun?"

It was Ram who answered her older sister's query with an enthusiastic – "Yes! I wish you were there, Blanc. Or even better, us there with you in KITT."

"But, Ram." Rom then interjected with a slight shiver. "I got to see Sis in action and its really dangerous. Fighting that toad robot is actually safer for us than chasing the truck in the highways of northern Planeptune."

"Ironically, that's actually true." Blanc admitted with a slight blush. "Even if KITT is bullet proof, having those sparkling trails of lead bouncing off still scares the bejezus out of me. I'm glad that Vert made it clear that none of us would allow our sisters to join in the chase."

"Yes, but Miss Bouquet did not like it and even made a tantrum once Miss Vert made it clear that she could not participate in the quests that involves road combat." The young woman then added. "Miss Vert is correct as Miss Bouquet is too young to have a driver's license though."

"Yes, but that excuse wouldn't fly with Uni who has gotten hers." The brunette CPU then added. "By the way, thank you for looking after my sisters. So, what does Vert want with Lowee, Chika?"

Chika Hakozaki only sighed once again as the Lowee CPU easily read into her plan. "Miss Vert wanted your cooperation in one of the games that one of her companies is working on or at least a certain company from Leanbox."

"Well, I want to know the name of that company first." Blanc then looked at her sisters and added. "I'll join you two in the common room in half an hour. So, have both Mina and Financier prepare some hotcakes that we'll all eat."

"Yes, Sis." Both twins then said before leaving the office.

Turning back to the visiting oracle, Blanc then added. "So, what company do I have to purposely lean on to get some cooperation done?"

Chika then told Blanc about the company that consistently rejected Leanbox's company's proposals. The CPU only nodded while mentally making notes to personally talk to certain CEOs in her country in order to create a culture of cooperation with other countries as that would lead to new ideas being discovered, one of which would end up being a moneymaker.

-oOo-

Meanwhile in Planeptune, Neptune had waved Noire goodbye after the latter had spent the night in Planeptune's basilicom.

Of course, Histoire was seen early that morning flying away laughing from an upset Neptune in her red pajamas trying to swat the former with a purple pillow for taking a picture of the latter and Noire cuddling under the covers in Neptune's bedroom with her new camera that the basilicom staff gave to her as a gift.

"I'm sorry," Noire then told her host with an apologetic bow as Neptune came back, still fuming. "I guess my sleepwalking habit isn't cured yet."

"So, does Uni complain that you go to her room and cuddle with her until morning?" Neptune was saying while heading to the bathroom to freshen up. "Thankfully, neither Histy nor I do that."

"Yeah," the CPU goddess of Lastation answered as she had swung her panted legs to the side of the bed. "One time, she whacked me on the head with the pillow we shared because of what I just did with you. She had even double locked her own room so I couldn't go in."

"So, where did you end up after sleepwalking?" The Planeptune CPU was asking before brushing her teeth.

"That's the weird part," Noire answered as she had fixed the bed. "I ended up back in my room the next day as if nothing happened."

"Ah," the lilac-haired CPU said with a nod. "Your turn then. I'll wait for you and hopefully, Histy in the dining room for breakfast."

-oOo-

Neptune had blushed at the memory of that morning since Histoire sent copies of the captured intimate moment to both Kei and Uni who were well prepared to handle Noire if she had any inkling of the copies.

Kei actually sent Histoire an e-mail for brightening her busy days and that she would treasure the picture since even she thought that both Neptune and Noire did look cute together and that they both need a break sometimes.

Uni, on the other hand, was more than happy to use the picture as blackmail whenever her sister was much too hard on her without reason. She too hoped that both CPUs would shack up together and maybe give her a niece to spoil if that is even possible.

The Planeptune CPU was given a hard quest to fulfill as the object of the quest – a Phoenix was quite strong even for the strongest questers namely Guild Agent IF and recent nursing board passer Compa to handle.

Of course, the caveat being that the said flying monster was more interested in chasing ice cream trucks than actually attacking people thus it was considered more of a nuisance than a menace.

As such, Neptune had gone to her garage as the Interceptor would be needed both to chase the unusually strong avian monster as well as to back her up as Blanc had given Histy a copy of the AI program so the Interceptor could now follow verbal commands and even think of its own, both of which were needed if Neptune would need a partner of sorts in battle against tough monsters that she could not fight alone.

Again, the Planeptune CPU had buckled up and warmed up the car's new hydrogen powered turbines before leaving the garage towards the location outside of the city where Histy had gotten the bait vehicle – an ice cream truck that was filled to the brim with the frozen delights was running at highway speeds to be in order to set up the trap.

-oOo-

In the air outside Planeptune city, a certain avian type of enemy was flying around in circles as if it was looking for prey. The said bird was a huge multi-colored creature that was usually seen in Thelad Sanctuary in Lastation.

Speaking of the bird, its wingspan had reached 15 meters with a total height once standing on the ground at 10 meters. Locals had labeled the monster as a Phoenix, one of the most powerful avian monsters that only the most leveled adventurer or goddess could fight with on even terms.

Unusually, this one was much smarter than its kind and thus would only try for a swipe before flapping its winds to create a sandstorm then escaping in the confusion. In the air, it left the various aircraft alone and thus was not considered a threat by the various militaries.

Given that this phoenix loves ice cream, it is the ice cream companies that had sent the notice to have the monster killed or brought to a sanctuary, preferably in the PC continent.

The bird, of course, did not know that it was targeted and thus she only played around with whatever adventurer that would find her resting on the ground before leaving. IF was especially incensed at being played for a fool by a bird and thus would end up having angry sex with her partner – Compa that very night, not that Compa herself minded.

By 8:30 in the morning, at route I-89, Neptune had finally found her prey going for the ice cream truck coming from the southeast. She waited for the bird to make its move before jumping out of the car and transforming to Purple Heart while giving a verbal command to her Interceptor to assume auto combat mode.

As for the bird, it was blissfully unaware that her latest caper was actually a trap. But given that the siren call of the ice cream inside the truck was so strong as to push aside any reasoning, the phoenix continued its dive.

As for the driver, he had known about the attacks from his fellow drivers and immediately stopped the truck, prompting Neptune to do the same with the Interceptor. He then turned off the engine and unbuckled his seat belt before opening the door and making a run for it, not caring which direction as he would not be chased anyway.

The Phoenix, who by then noticed the second vehicle behind the ice cream truck had swiped the whole truck itself and flew back home. Its strength was more than able to let her carry the truck with ease as it flew away with the Interceptor now in pursuit.

-oOo-

The chase had gotten over the sea as the bird was smart enough to know that the car could not follow it over the water. Boy was she wrong as the Interceptor had crashed the barriers and switched to its fast boat mode and kept the phoenix in its sights.

'I have to admit,' Neptune thought as she had to familiarize herself with the new buttons and indicators because of the change of the Interceptor's form. 'This bird is both strong and smart. I think I'll make an aviary for it if the PC continent wouldn't want one in its zoo.'

The chase had continued on towards the Lastation coast, with puzzled watercraft giving way to the strange red intruder on the seas that was driven by none other than Planeptune's CPU.

Chirper were buzzing on why Neptune was chasing the phoenix to Lastation. And since Uni was a regular user of this communication method, she immediately told her older sister that the ice cream muncher was a phoenix and that they had to catch it.

"I think it's best that we leave that to Neptune," Noire told her sister while looking up from her desk. "She would have called us for help otherwise."

"Yeah, but what if it had friends." Uni then added as she was worried about a lone goddess taking on a flight of phoenixes. "She's gonna be killed."

"Uni, don't underestimate Neptune," the Lastation CPU then reprimanded her little sister. "She has logged in more than twice our own quests while still being able to do her paperwork, I checked with our Guild Master if you wanted to know. Besides, I'm sure she'll call us up if she gets into a jam."

"Alright, sis." Uni then waved goodbye at her older sister. "Speaking of which, I think I'll do some quests of my own since I've rested enough, and I think you've gotten the paperwork part anyway."

"That's true," Noire then said before blowing a strand of hair off her nose. "I'll join you once I've finished this."

The Lastation Candidate then left for the guild and get some quests to level up.

-oOo-

To keep herself on the Phoenix's tail, Neptune was forced to use the VTOL mode of the Interceptor in order for the car to switch to jet mode and continue the chase in the sky. The red interceptor now spouted wings and a tail in order to fly while jet boosters propelled it in the air.

The chase had continued on towards the north where the monster bird's home was located near Thelad Sanctuary. Surprisingly, none of the other monsters had come to fight the intruder to their territory.

Then again, considering that a bunch of high leveled guild members were there to shake things up would be more than enough reason for the monsters to remain in the dungeon at all.

Within the said group was a certain magician/scientist that was wearing a long white overcoat with black trimming that seemed to hide a black uniform with a red tie and pleated skirt. Her black witch hat managed to compliment her long blue hair and eyes. Finally, her gray thigh-high socks and black ankle high heels had completed her outfit.

The said magician had joined the adventurers both for leveling and to gather certain materials for her latest invention.

Back outside, the large colorful bird had put down its carried vehicle and carefully peeled off the roof and walls as if it was peeling a candy bar. She then licked the contents just as the Interceptor had landed and reverted back to its vehicular form, but only in attack mode.

The vehicle's driver had also gotten out of the driver seat and transformed to a taller more mature form that held a black katana in her two hands.

The creature had seen the newcomer with its right eye that was still above the van's roof and raised its head high enough to reveal its ice cream covered beak that was a good two feet high from nose to bottom.

Purple Heart only took a second to see how ridiculous the bird looked like before dropping her sword that disappeared into thin air as she collapsed on the grass, laughing out loud.

The bird, seeing that her possible opponent was acting different, went back to her meal and then licked the sweet stuff off its beak with a satisfied expression. Once the phoenix was sure that she had looked presentable enough, she then looked at her opponent/s once again.

This time, none of the weapons were seen sprouting from the white vehicle and the girl…actually young woman was looking at her with what seemed to be love in her eyes.

The phoenix only cawed cutely that had gotten Purple Heart to embrace the big bird and say. "You know what, you can live with me in Planeptune and I can give you all the ice cream you want. Just don't attack any more ice cream trucks."

The phoenix then made a thoughtful gesture with its wings and beak before cawing happily as it nuzzled its beak on Neptune.

Since then, Neptune had a new pet that she called NTP for NepTune's Pet and had it kept in the aviary until sundown where she rides the phoenix or flies with it as Purple Heart for a few hours before they come back to sleep.

Weeks had passed with Neptune and NTP having fun after sundown so the former was forced to finish every paperwork and even quests before dinner so both could enjoy a night flight before bed.

Neptune was having so much fun with NTP that she felt antsy whenever she was in an important meeting or party during the evenings. 'If it wasn't that important, I would have ditched this event.'

Neptune and NTP's night flights had managed to get a lot of attention from bird watchers and even non-bird watchers who could see how happy the Planeptune goddess was in her element and her shares grew even more as a result of it.

There was even a time that Neptune had to calm her pet down because a news chopper wanted to make an interview with her while still in the air.

In Lowee's basilicom, both Rom and Ram were excited upon seeing the news footage in the TV within the common room. Ram even said. "Hey Blanc, why don't we go grab a flying monster here and make it our pet."

Blanc was then enveloped in a red aura with her right eye glowing like the Terminator's as she answered in a grating voice. "No, we will not for two reasons. One, not all monsters are as docile as that phoenix that Neptune is riding and Two, it is much too dangerous."

Ram then went to her twin and said in a low voice. "Maybe we should go visit Miss Vert and have her make a mechanical bird that we could ride on."

Rom was about to say something when a large shadow had engulfed the both of the Lowee candidates in darkness. "Sis, run for it."

"Get back here," Blanc said with a paper fan that she had bought from Neptune only a week before as she had chased both of her little sisters. "I said, get back here, you little shits!"

-oOo-

In Lastation's basilicom, Uni and Noire were looking through binoculars as they sat down on lounge chairs that had orange juice in its holders at the spectacle in the sky to their west.

"I have to admit that this is better than watching it on TV especially since these binoculars had long range microphones," Uni was telling her older sister who was lying on her left. "Although, we really should make a bigger shebang than Miss Neptune to increase our own shares."

"That is true," Noire said with a sigh. "But I think our purple haired friend here just gave us a good idea for a game though."

"Don't we have enough flight simulation games under our belts?"

"There could never be enough, Uni." Noire said as she had put down her binoculars to look at her little sister. "There's a lot of people who envy us CPUs and CPU candidates that have the ability to fly and that's how they deal with it even if it is only in simulation."

"I see your point, Sis."

-oOo-

In Leanbox, both Vert and Bouquet were also watching the news coverage in the common room and had to shake her heads at how the CPU nicknamed Lonely Heart would be so joyful in night flights.

"If Neptune was so intent of riding a phoenix, I would have lent her the Batwing." Vert then commented with a pout. "It's much safer than riding a phoenix bare backed."

"I think she would rather ride a phoenix bare backed than be strapped in the Batwing, Sis." The younger blonde then said with a sigh. "I haven't flown much in my other form, but I can tell that flying while feeling the wind is different than being inside a plane."

"I guess you're right," the older blonde said as the interview was nearing its end. "Well, I guess it's time for little CPU candidates to get to bed. It's now past bedtime."

"Aw, do I have to?"

"Yes, Bouquet as you still have to train with Neptune tomorrow afternoon." Vert then said with a more serious tone of voice.

"Oh, alright." Bouquet knew better than to argue with Vert when the latter was in her serious mode as she stood up and left the common room to take a quick bath and a change of clothes. "Good night, Vert."

"Good night."

-oOo-

Finally, we come to a certain apartment that is the home of the famous guild agent IF and her partner for life – the nurse Compa.

Unlike the others, the pair had already eaten and were in their bedclothes – light blue pajamas and a pink nightgown with pink frills. Not only that, both were getting ready to sleep when they came upon the broadcast.

"Argh," the brunette agent said with a hiss upon seeing the familiar bird being ridden by Neptune. "It's that stupid bird again. Although, I'm happy that Lady Neptune has that thing in a leash, it still irritates me that thing's still on the loose sometimes."

"I'm sure that it has to do with our loss to it, huh." The congo-pink haired nurse then said while massaging her partner's shoulders to calm her down. "It's not just strong, but pretty smart to outwit us no matter how hard we tried to trap it."

"Yeah," IF's eyes then fluttered flirtatiously. "I don't mind the nights after it though."

"Perv," Compa lightly slapped IF's back before the brunette had tackled her back to the bed. "Hey, we have a busy day tomorrow, you know."

"Let's just call in sick," IF answered as she showered Compa with kisses. "Considering what we'll being doing later, I doubt we'd be able to get up in the morning anyway."

"Perv," Compa softly complained in her best bedroom voice, but still felt exhilarated at what her lover would do next as her nightgown's shoulder straps were pulled down her smooth silky shoulders. "I still love you though."

"Same here, babe." IF answered as she had unbuttoned her own pajama tops. "Same here."

-oOo-

For the next six weeks, Neptune had visited her pet and even paid for its bi-weekly upkeep with her own money. And I can bet your next line is "But how can Neptune afford to pay for a huge cage made of titanium and half a ton of bird seed along with a hundred gallons of ice cream every two weeks?"

(Hears "But how can Nep – wait what?!" from across the fourth wall) Nice to see that I still have the touch then. (does victory dance from Golden Wind)

In truth, Neptune has wisely squirreled away a huge part of her payments from quests as well as her monthly salary from the Basilicom for doing a good job in managing her country and thus she has a lot of cash that she could spend for her new pet. As for the rest, it was used for buying whatever she needed or in some cases, wanted with an example to be given later.

"NTP," Neptune had confessed to her pet while flying along with the phoenix in goddess form. "I'm glad that we didn't have to fight as you're the best pet a CPU like me could ever have."

NTP only cooed as she had gotten closer to Purple Heart and nuzzled the left side of her face with her beak. The Planeptune CPU only giggled as she really enjoyed their night flights, the only time where she could be herself.

"Y'know, since I don't have be a sister." Purple Heart then sobered up. "I've been looking for something that would its substitute and so I have Histy, my job, the guild members that support me in my harder missions, and now you."

NTP only nodded as the pair had gotten over Leanbox's basilicom and passed it still going south. The pair then turned left and continued on towards the sea between Leanbox and Lastation.

"I actually envy Noire, Vert, and especially Blanc for having sisters and I don't get anything." Neptune then continued over the wind. "Still, I'm sure that I'll have my own sis someday as I've been working my butt off for the past five years and my present shares is proof of that."

Again, the phoenix only nodded despite not understanding some of the spoken terms and even cooed in the hopes that her new owner would smile again…and thankfully, it worked.

Neptune had smiled before looking at the position of the moon. "I think it's time that we head for home since we both need sleep for a full day tomorrow."

The phoenix only cawed sadly but followed Purple Heart back to her cage in Planeptune City Zoo. The pair was about to turn to the left in tandem before they realized that they had company.

CPU Green Heart had joined them in the shared airspace coming from the direction of her basilicom with a wide smile. "Hope you don't mind company?"

"We're actually on our way home now," Purple Heart answered dryly. "So, what's the rush?"

"Nothing much," the green-haired goddess said with a shrug. "I just want to fly around with you two just for the hell of it."

"There's still tomorrow," Neptune added with a sigh as she and NTP would not be alone anymore. 'Maybe I'll reroute our night flight the night after tomorrow night towards the north. It'll still be in Planeptune for the most part.'

"A credit for your thoughts?" Green Heart said over the wind. "I'll leave if I'm a bother."

"No," Neptune quickly said while attempting to grab hold of her fellow CPU's arm. "You can join us until we're near Planeptune then you can go home."

"I'll have to admit," Vert then added as the trio continued flying towards the mass of lights in the near horizon. "Flying around this time of night is quite an experience. Now I know why you enjoy it, Neptune."

"Yeah," Neptune said with a nod. "It's just us and the sky. Maybe the planes too if we get to close to the flight paths, but we've flown enough times to avoid them."

"So, are you going to invite the rest of the girls?"

"Nope," Neptune answered with a shake of her head. "I'd like this to be my me time if you know what I mean."

"I understand," Vert then slowly turned away. "But I'll still join you if you're in the neighborhood."

"Alright."

The trio then went their separate ways home.

-oOo-

The following night had Green Heart join both Purple Heart and her NTP in the skies over Leanbox. The reason why Green Sister could not join them was Purple Heart started her flight around 9:15 in the evening, fifteen minutes before Bouquet's own bedtime.

"Thanks for letting me fly along with the both of you," Green Heart said over the wind. "I do find it a great way to just let go of all my excess baggage that even Bouquet and the others could not understand."

"No problem," Purple Heart answered with a shrug. "Although I'm surprised that an online gamer like you would want to just fly aimlessly in the night sky."

"That hurts," Green Heart pouted as the jibe still hit home. "I like to play online games in my own time, but this rush I'm feeling I could never get in some game."

"Sorry," Purple Heart then added as she knew that her fellow CPU was being sincere when she had joined their shared flight with her pet. "I'm just surprised at some like you actually enjoying mundane activities such as this."

"What?" Leanbox's CPU shot back with a frown. "Flying in CPU form just for the heck of it and not to get from place to place or to fight? Not all of us are NEETs, you know."

"Coulda fooled me," Neptune said softly to herself. Louder, she answered. "Between your online games, Blanc's writing, and Noire's cosplay, I'm the only one who is closest to normal as I just play console games a few times in a month."

"Y-you knew about it," Vert finally realized that Neptune had known about her secret hobbies along with the others. "How?"

"It's an open secret," Neptune answered with a shrug. "Histoire had bought a book that I can tell Blanc had made, Gust sometimes played with you in one of those MMORPG games as a merchant, and Noire just had to cosplay as Black Rock Shooter in one of those anime conventions in Lastation where I was invited by Nisa, in disguise of course."

Green Heart had lost her breath momentarily upon realizing their secrets could be discovered so easily. 'I've heard of Gust as a famous alchemist in Planeptune, but I never knew that she plays games too. Poor Noire though for Neptune to catch her in the act even if she was also disguised.'

Vert then asked to satisfy her curiosity. "Who were you disguised as so Noire could not even recognize you?"

"I'm Kaitlin of VR Troopers in her VR armor," Neptune then said with a smirk. "I didn't know that she and Uni watched that show though as she asked me to pose with her one time for posterity."

'Considering that the show didn't actually take off in PC continent and neither did the game, I'm not surprised.' Vert thought upon hearing the given answer. 'Still, story wise, it's a lot better than Masked Rider.'

The trio had continued their aimless flying around until it was a quarter to eleven in the evening and it was time to go home.

-oOo-

The next day, Neptune had gone through her daily routine – paperwork/meetings in the morning, quests/openings/public appearances in the afternoon. Sometimes, she had Histy there with her in the openings/public appearances so the oracle would have some fun as well.

After dinner, Neptune would then spend two hours in her office to clear the remaining paperwork before leaving the Basilicom as Purple Heart and let NTP go for their nightly flight.

Unlike the previous night, Purple Heart had gone north to fly towards the western coastline until it was time to go home. She never thought that she would meet both White Heart and her sisters in the airspace of central Planeptune.

Unlike before, NTP had seen the three coming and squawked a warning to her owner. Purple Heart had calmed her pet down before flying faster to meet up with the CPU and her Candidates.

White Heart had used her arms to keep the Candidates behind her as she still feared the phoenix despite knowing that it was quite docile. It was more of instinct with women that would protect those younger than they were.

Both Rom and Ram did gawk at the huge bird monster that was hovering behind Purple Heart as if waiting for orders. NTP herself just observed the newcomers with a curiosity much like a child rather than a predator.

"Neptune," White Heart then told her fellow CPU. "The twins wanted to experience flying with you and your pet. But I want that…that thing as far away from them as possible."

"Of course," the Planeptune CPU answered with a nod. "That was what I was about to say as well. Safety first and foremost after all. Hi, Rom and Ram."

"Hi, Miss Neptune." Both twins replied with shy smiles and waves only slightly at the purple-haired CPU. "We hope you don't mind having us tonight."

"Nah, I guess once Vert joins me in these nightly escapades…" Neptune could not help but smile at the next part. "Everyone else would join me up here one way or the other. Still, like I told that news reporter in his company's chopper, we're just here to spread our wings and fly within our borders or slightly beyond it for the fun of it."

"I guess it would be enjoyable to a certain degree," Blanc admitted as the group had turned to the left and flew towards the ocean with the phoenix in front and everyone else riding the slipstream in its wake or vortex surfing to keep themselves in the air while conserving share energy. "But if the Candidates were to join us in this activity, I would suggest an earlier timetable."

This time, Neptune sighed as Blanc had misread Neptune's offer to join her in the night flight. "I would suggest that they do something similar in the morning, preferably before nine so they could get a plenty of Vitamin D."

Both Ram and Rom had frowned at having to wake up before nine in the morning, but Blanc had frowned for another reason entirely.

The blue-haired goddess had even thought. 'And here I thought that Neptune would hate the moniker – Lonely Heart when she actually embraced it. Still, she did have a good point as these two need to wake up a little earlier.'

"Sis, you're not going to agree with Miss Neptune's idea, wouldn't you?" Ram then asked her older sister. "Wouldn't you?"

"Well, she does have a point in that you both need to wake up a little earlier as the rest of us even Bouquet is known to wake up either at seven in the morning or at eight."

"Wahh," the pink-haired White Sister cried out in shock. "Please don't. I beg of you."

"No," Blanc replied as she had put her foot down. "You are both going to wake up at Eight so you could do some practice with Uni at Nine. And you are going to enjoy it."

Immediately, both White Sisters had frowned at the fact that they have to wake up an hour early just like the rest. Neptune could only shrug as she herself wakes up at seven anyway.

The flight went on as planned, before the quintet had separated near the border of Planeptune and Lowee.

-oOo-

Not everyone is happy with Planeptune's shares rising because of their CPU's hard work and even her newsworthy night flight. Underneath an abandoned lumber mill at the southernmost forest of Lastation, lies a secret base of ASIC where an important meeting was about to begin.

The said base was as high-tech as Planeptune's basilicom and Leanbox's command center was since well…some of the base's components were actually smuggled from there. This was supposed to be just the Seven Sage's headquarters alone, but with the rest of the antagonist groups being driven out of their own HQs, all of them were forced to share this one.

Not only that, having most of their members arrested for some reason or another had reduced their manpower by quite a bit. Try as they might, they could not set free CFW Brave, CFW Judge, Warechu, Linda, Copypaste, and Abnes.

Both Brave and Judge were caught by both Neptune and Vert as the pair would steal an important part of what Mister Badd would be using for one of his important projects. Warechu was caught by Uni and the Lastation Police Force trying to sell pirated games that had the influence of Arfoire.

Linda was caught by trying to smuggle pirated games, and smuggled hardware along with Copypaste before the CPUs and IF had caught them red handed. Abnes was trying to kidnap Rem and Rom, but Financier and her tote bag were more than able to take care of her.

I do not think that Abnes would even consider buying a tote bag in the future considering how hard a fully loaded tote bag could hit when used by a pissed off maid that served as the twins' temporary caretaker since Mina was very busy making agreement measures between the Lowee game companies, Lastation game companies, Planeptune game companies, and finally, the Leanbox game companies with help from the other CPUs and their oracles that were also doing the same.

At the moment, only Arfoire, CFW Magic, Mister Badd, Rei Rights, Anonydeath, Affimojas, and Steamax had remained, mostly because they seldom leave the base, or they were able to cover their tracks well.

Arfoire had taken the lead despite her organization had the least members out of the groups behind Seven Sages although Affimax was still complete with both of its members still intact since Rei was oddly quiet for some reason. "Alright, let's start this meeting off to a good start. None of us wants to a repeat of that free for all that got me kicking your collective butts."

"That wasn't the only thing you did," Annonydeath added with a whimper. "You big meanie!"

"Hey, I have needs too, you know." Arfoire said with a dismissive wave. "Magic has Linda and Rei has Steamax so who else would be left as Affimax is too old and not interested with Mister Badd just not interested as well. Just be glad that you're quite a beast under the sheets and I like that in a man."

"J-just keep it only i-in weekends," the usual flamboyant super hacker answered rather weakly. "I-it's not e-easy to keep this base under wraps and to eavesdrop on their activities."

"Sure, handsome." The white-haired Deity of Sin added with a wink at the hacker's direction. "Alright, let's get back to business."

"S-so what would do?" Rei Rights then asked, a finger twirling a strand of her blue hair. "D-do w-we have to make fake CPUs to defeat them?"

"Maybe as back up," Mister Badd answered with a shrug. "We already have all four copies that were powered by Miss Rei's powers, but if it were not for that stupid underling and that goof of a tin can, we would have completed the process and gave them self-sufficient personalities."

"I'll have Steamax procure those required discs and devices after the meeting," Affimojas said with confidence. "Even then, I want a piece of the action if that would be possible."

"As would I," CFW Magic said quietly. "Maybe we could do both and hope to at least take down even one of the CPUs before retreating."

"I-I like t-that idea," Rei then said with a slight smile. "L-let's use it."

"There's also that phoenix that Neptune had made her pet," Steamax then said. "But I think a doohickey from Anny would put it under our control."

"Yes, indeed." Annoydeath suddenly exclaimed with a whoop. "I wish that I had gotten my monster control chip ready before Neptune had made it her pet. This time, we could use it to bite her mistress' hand."

"That's good," Arfoire then said with a large smile. "I've always thought Neptune as my rival. Out of the four goddesses, she tends to wreck our plans the most even to the point of helping the other goddesses to do it."

"Yes, I actually thought our plan of our shipments getting through Planeptune would disgrace her as that country's protector, but it seemed that we were still thwarted anyway." Annoydeath then added with a shake of his head. "It does make me wonder on how they had managed to pinpoint our vessel that fast."

"I told you that using Lastation as our jump off point was a better idea," Mister Badd then said with a sneer. "Their patrols were less effective than Planeptune's and I even pointed out the best rendezvous point for the ship to pick up the vehicles."

"Oh, you mean Suiko point that is so obvious for a landing point that Candidate Uni was seen in that location multiple times and managed to sink one of our tramp freighters when they tried to unload some of our contraband during the night."

"Oh, do rub it in." The plump man added sarcastically with his fists clenched out of sight. "I needed a good laugh anyway."

"Enough!" Arfoire had enough of the men's pissing contest. "We'll have to search for suitable landing points in Lowee as Leanbox is more of a trap for us anyway. But first, we need to disrupt the system first before we could continue with our plans."

With that said, the meeting was adjourned, and preparations being made for their revenge.

-oOo-

Two weeks had passed by peacefully with everyone doing their own thing and Lastation was once again preparing for another Tech Expo. Unlike the previous ones, Neptune herself was now invited to present some of her nations' games and hardware.

This was why Neptune was attending meetings and presentations by the companies in Planeptune to discuss and even see for herself what her countrymen were making to sell to their neighbors.

As such, said companies had brought out their best products so as not to make fools of themselves in front of their goddess. Even then, there were those that just did not make the cut once they were rated by the company experts and Neptune herself.

The back to back meetings and presentations were so long that Neptune could not partake in guild quests thus forcing IF and the other guild members to take in more quests, not just for the money but to pick up the slack from Neptune's absence.

The same could be said for the other goddesses in their own respective countries and thus the Candidates were forced to hang out more often to finish quests and help their oracles in taking care of the mountainous paperwork.

Even then, Neptune still found time to fly in the night either alone or with the other goddesses and even at times by the candidates as well. NTP did not mind company since she felt like having more of the goddesses and their candidates give her the feeling of having a flock of her own, sort of.

-oOo-

On the day of the Expo, the CPUs were there to make speeches and sign autographs to eager fans. They had also held meetings with the companies of their fellow countries as well as their own.

For the various criminal organizations, it was an invitation to create chaos all over Gameindustri and if possible, end the reign of the goddesses permanently. As Annonydeath would say once the agreed time had passed – "Heaven or hell, let's rock!".

-oOo-

At the moment, all four CPUs were invited to be the judges of a cosplay contest when someone had whispered to Blanc that someone was attacking the Lowee Global Expo.

"I'm sorry," Blanc said while trying to keep her famous temper in check. "I'll deal with the jerks that's going buck wild in my city. I'll let you deal with the rest here."

"Alright," Noire said after a minute. "This contest would be finished in a few minutes anyway so give us a call if you need help."

"I'll do that," the brunette CPU of Lowee said before standing up and heading for the exit. "Although, I have a feeling this isn't the only one."

Noire then told the announcer. "Tell everyone here that CPU White Heart has to take care of a certain emergency back home and for them to calm down. The last thing we need is a panic because of something the crime groups are cooking up."

"Understood, Lady Noire." The announcer said with a bow before returning to the stage and making the announcement. "Attention, everyone. Lady White Heart has some business to take care of in Lowee and thus we will continue with the contest without her. Please calm down."

The crowd did calm down but were still fearful as rumors of the criminal organizations joining forces to bring down the CPUs and their Candidates. For the moment, they just went with the flow, but messaged their loved ones of possible danger.

Once the final contestant was introduced and even paraded, Neptune, Vert, and Noire then jotted down their scores and had Uni tally them to determine the winner.

"And the winner is…" the announcer was about to proclaim the name of the winner when suddenly smoke had suddenly emitted at the center of the stage followed by an explosion of light. "What the hell?!"

"We interrupt this program for an important announcement…" A rather flamboyant human sized Evangelion was then seen once everyone had recovered their eyesight. "I challenge Lady Noire to a showdown at Arfoire's old factory as we the Seven Sages had enough of her meddling in our affairs. That is…if she's brave enough."

Noire had to be held by both Neptune and Vert to keep her on her seat with Uni answering the hacker. "Who are you? And how did you manage to project your ugly mug on the stage?"

"Well, honey." The Evangelion answered with a flourish of arms. "I'm Annonydeath, Anny to my friends, the Seven Sage's wizard and the unstoppable hacker of Lastation."

"Alright," Noire stood up once again, clearly incensed. "When?"

"Right now would be nice, my dear Noire." Annonydeath then said before making a flying kiss gesture at the disgusted CPU. "I'll be waiting."

"I'm going and none of you better stop me," Noire then said as she left her seat and headed out the door. "I'm going to dismantle that tin can for insinuating that I'm a coward."

"Actually, it's more like a mech suit." Vert then corrected. "Still, at least take Uni with you in case of a trap."

"I know," Noire said while grabbing her sister's left hand. "Let's go, Uni."

"Sure, Sis." Uni answered with an excited squeal. "Let's have the Vanquish pick us up."

"Ok," Noire said as the sisters had gone through the door.

"It seems that we're the only ones left, Vert," Neptune finally said after keeping to herself for the past ten minutes. "Want to eat out before heading home?"

"That would be lovely," Vert was actually surprised to hear Neptune of all people offering her a treat. "Just no pudding for now. I need to watch my figure, you see."

Neptune had to make a delayed double take before smiling as she got the joke. "You really are a riot, Vert."

-oOo-

The pair of CPUs were now sipping cappuccino in the local Planetbucks coffee store and have even signed some autographs for their Lastation and other countries' fans that found them in one of the booths.

"We should do this more often, Neptune." Vert then said while sipping on her coffee mug. "Too bad, the other girls aren't here."

"Let's do it at the next Expo," Neptune said with a neutral expression as she does not want to be too chummy with the other CPUs as it would be bad for business. "To be sure, let's make sure that no criminal organization would be active those days as well."

The sweet laughter emanating from Vert had echoed through the store that was even contagious as the rest of the staff and even the other customers. At least, that was before the melody of Pikon de Metafiction of the group – Eraberushi was heard.

"Excuse me," Vert said before digging for her purse for her Rokia 222 cellphone. "I need to take this call."

The blonde then left her seat to take the call elsewhere, leaving behind her purse. Neptune had amused herself by checking her own phone's text messages and answered a few of them.

After a few minutes, Vert had come back, grabbed her purse as well as her drink in a hurry before telling Neptune. "It seems that Gargan City and Hero City is under attack with Cave and Mister Chief getting their hands busy. One of the said attackers is said to be a clone of White Heart and two robotic goons at Gargan City with Hero City being overwhelmed by monsters."

"Sure," Neptune said before she had to take a chirper message from Histoire as Vert had ran out of the door in a hurry.

A minute later, Neptune herself had slurped the last of her cappuccino as she too ran out of the door.

-oOo-

In the middle of the Lowee Global Expo site, an impatient young woman in a black armored bikini with straps connecting them, spiked wings at her back, armored boots, armored gloves, and a halo like object composed of two rings linked together over her head. Her pink neon hair was tied in pigtails with an eye patch over right eye. Said boots were tapping in an erratic rhythm as their owner was getting really impatient.

"Where is she?" the young woman told her male companion, who seemed to be an old man in a robotic suit and accompanied by two ASIC soldiers plus what seemed to be Green Heart. "Where is White Heart?"

Not so far away, two girls in white body suits with one of them having pink hair were hiding behind one of the booths. The blue haired girl was asking her companion. "What do we do now?"

"Yeah, if it was just Mister Badd and his dolls, it would be easier." The pink haired one answered after sneaking a peak at the villains standing in the open space at the center of the site. "But CFW Magic is there and that fake Green Heart too."

"How do you know it's fake?" The first girl then asked. "It looked a lot like Green Heart."

"Two reasons," the second girl answered with a slight whine. "First, I doubt Miss Vert would join the bad guys, and secondly, if that was really her then where's Bouquet? Do you even see her, Rom?"

The blue haired girl – Lowee Candidate Rom looked around before shaking her head. "No, Ram. But I think I saw that nice lady with the scarf crouching over there."

Rom then pointed at one of the top of the taller building where the Heroine of Gameindustri – Nisa was crouching as she scanned the bevy of bad guys with binoculars and for once, being more careful about it rather than just jumping in with both feet and a round house swing…oh, and a fabulous pose that was coupled with her now famous justice quips.

Lowee Candidate Ram had looked at where her twin sister was pointing and gasped. "Yeah, it is that nice lady with the scarf. Why is she just crouched over there?"

"I don't know, Ram," Rom then said before taking another peak at the villains were just waiting for something…actually someone to arrive. "Miss Noire once told me that Miss Nisa tends to just jump into battle with the bad guys back then. I guess she's waiting for Sis to arrive too."

"Well, I hope she comes soon since we can't hide from those five goons forever." Ram then added with clasped hands. "Even then, let's use that new combination skill we've been practicing for weeks if they found us."

"Sure."

While the pair were talking with the Fake Green Heart being told by Magic to check out the booths for the Candidates or other Lowee soldiers that may be hiding, White Heart had arrived on scene, slightly winded by her long flight from Lastation City.

She was spotted by one of the ASIC soldiers before knives suddenly rained down on them on all of them.

White Heart had seen that Nisa had started her attack just as she herself had started her own. Not only that, both her sisters had fired their own ice magic spells thus Magic was encased in ice that exploded with Fake Green Heart hit by multiple huge icicles at the same time.

This was followed by a giant penguin that flew at the group before making impact and exploding. White Heart could somehow see the silhouette of the said penguin before it disappeared as the spot where the villains were standing had detonated, leaving behind a mushroom cloud just behind the silhouette.

Once the smoke had settled, only Magic and the Fake Green Heart was still barely standing with Mister Badd struggling to get to his feet.

"Hard Break." Blanc then slammed her ax on both female villains sending them flying before spinning once before slamming her ax on the concrete cracking it as magma was seen glowing underneath the cracks as a small hill sprouted from the ground hitting both girls for the second time. "Happy landings."

Blanc then spun once again before throwing her ax like a boomerang, hitting the pair twelve times before coming back to its owner's hands. For the finale, Blanc then jumped in the air for a spinning dive before swinging her ax at both enemies that had landed roughly on t then flying off.

"Rom, Ram, let's combine our attacks." She then yelled after getting her breath back. "Let's go."

"Yes, Sister."

"Hey old man," Nisa said as she fell towards the only male villain with her right leg outstretched. "Feel the kick of Justice!"

I kind of feel pity for the old man as he was not that active a combatant despite his armor and thus could not tank the damage from Nisa's attacks that had gotten even more powerful lately. He was the first to go down in defeat.

Magic had gotten herself to stand by sheer will alone and managed to pull the fake goddess even if it meant dropping her scythe in the process. 'How did these goddess get even stronger…no, how did White Heart, her candidates, and that busy body had gotten stronger within these past five years alone?'

"Dry Ravine!" All three Lowee goddess and candidates yelled while Rom had fired a beam at Magic who had pushed the fake goddess towards the beam. Ram then fired her Absolute Zero attack.

The result was that Fake Green Heart was encased in ice before hit by large blocks of ice six times, making her cry out in pain. The finale had come from Blanc that skated her way through an ice slide before slamming her ax at the poor clone, destroying the ice and the clone within in one blow.

"Oh no, you don't." Nisa yelled while jumping in the air. "You're not getting away, Magic. V-Extreme!"

A ring of rocks then formed where Nisa had reached the apex of her leap and she came down at an angle with her foot outstretched for a kick that hit the poor ASIC leader first before it was followed by a flurry of punches and kicks that finally brought her down for the count.

"I guess I'll be seeing you again, Linda." Magic said before losing consciousness. "Too bad it isn't outside of prison."

The quartet then chatted until the Lowee police had arrived to take the villains back to a Lowee maximum security prison to join their buddy – Copypaste since Linda was placed in a Women's Correctional Facility in Lastation once arrested.

"Thanks for the help, Nisa." Blanc said while keeping an arm over her two sisters. "I really doubt the kids and I could have handled that group if we went by themselves."

"No problem," the red-headed woman said with a tired smile. "Just be glad that I'm here in the neighborhood since I've been tracking the Seven Sages for a good two years now and ASIC before that. I didn't know that all criminal groups had allied themselves recently."

"Neither did we," Ram then piped up. "Then that means that the other goddesses would be led to a trap."

"Oh yes," Blanc then said before opening a communicator with the other goddesses. "I hope it's not too late."

After two or three rings in Neptune's case, the other communicators were answered.

"What is it?" Noire was the first to answer as her face was the first to appear. "Do you need some help?"

"No, we've just finished ours with some help from Nisa." Blanc said with a slight blush. "But it seems that the Seven Sages aren't alone in this as it seemed like all of the criminal organizations had gotten their acts together to stop us."

"Nep-what?!"

"That does make sense."

"What do you mean, Vert?" Neptune then asked her fellow goddess on her communicator as she was flying back to Planeptune. "I know both Linda and Ware-chu are free-lancers that work between almost all of the groups, but it's not like they would make an alliance."

"They would if they have a reason to – us."

"Well, since we have all of ASIC shut down plus nearly half of Seven Sages," Blanc then said. "It would seem that we have Arfoire, Affimojas, Steamax, Annonydeath, and Rei Rights to worry about."

"That sounds like a lot," Noire then said. "Even then, who did you fight, Blanc?"

"We've just taken down Magic, Mister Badd, and a fake Thunder Tits," the Lowee CPU said with a proud smile. "That also means that our fakes would be brought into the battle to pump up their numbers and attack power. Watch out for that."

"Maybe they'll have Fake Lonely Heart paired up with Annonydeath," Vert then added with a nod, ignoring the given nickname. "And Fake Tsundere Heart would take on Neptune."

"Hey, quit the Nep-Nowa shipping!" Neptune said with a frown. "I've had enough of that in fan-fiction websites and forums. "Noire is my friend and she can have anyone she wants."

"Thanks, Neptune." Noire could not help but blush. "But with what's been happening lately, aren't our nicknames actually placed on the wrong girl; of course, that's just my opinion."

"I'm actually fine with Lonely Heart," Neptune then confessed. "Besides, if I'm Tsundere Heart, to whom am I tsundere to?"

Nobody bothered to answer, and I am not going to either, believe me.

"Let's continue this conversation somewhere more private," Blanc said while keeping her temper in check. "If you can, hope that some of the heroes or adventurers would be nearby so you could get some needed allies in battle."

"I agree," Noire said as she had Arfoire's former secret factory in sight. "I've got the factory in sight now. Wish me luck."

"Good luck."

-oOo-

Back with Noire, she and Uni had landed in front of the former factory with weapons ready. The Lastation CPU then told her younger sister. "Uni, stay with me. I'm sure you've heard Blanc earlier and it seems that Annonydeath isn't alone and that he will surely get help from someone from the other syndicates."

"Yeah," the Lastation Candidate said with a sigh. "For all we know, he'll have Arfoire for company."

The pair then walked towards the factory, fully aware than an ambush would be imminent. Inside, the trio of Annonydeath, Rei Rights, and Fake Purple Heart were waiting for the pair to arrive as the factory floor was made into a bobby trap made to keep both goddess and candidate from escaping.

Both Noire and Uni had gotten past the double doors and turned on a switch as the inside was much too dark to see. It was actually the hidden trigger that activated the trap just as it also turned on the lights.

The double doors had locked themselves as shutters had closed the broken windows. Not only that, both girls were forced to move forward a few inches as prison bars had sprouted from behind them with a specially damage resistant glass roof falling from the broken ceiling.

"What the hell?!" Noire yelled at being suddenly caged like an animal. "What is this?"

"This…dear Noire is the last thing you and your little flat-chested sister would be seeing for a while if at all." The flamboyant hacker said while swinging his carried pallet rifle. "I don't know about Miss Rights here, but I'm alright with just leaving you here bleeding on the floor while calling for the ambulance."

"I-I'm alright with that too," the blue-haired young woman in a business suit then added. "My other self may seem like she wanted you roasted to a crisp with her thunder bolts, but e-even I know that deep inside that she just wanted you defeated rather than dead."

Fake Purple Heart only grunted as her mind was capable of nothing more than combat. Thus, the hacker then added. "And this one wanted to ravish your plastically reformed body, you old hag. Really, you shouldn't have even transformed to fight us as that white hair of yours just make you look so old."

"Hey, that's natural, you faggot!" Noire could not help but yell in fury as she had materialized her Raster Neutral. "And the real Neptune would not 'ravish' my body as you said since she respects me a great deal and vice versa."

"Yeah," Uni then added as her Stealth Blaster had materialized in front of her. "What she said."

With a guttural yell, Purple Heart then charged at the pair which Black Heart had stopped with her own long sword parrying the fake's katana.

Uni had gotten her oversized rifle to shift to shotgun mode and fired at both Annonydeath and Rei who were either firing his pallet rifle or casting a Thunder spell back.

Thanks to the limited and open space within the cage itself, both Uni and Noire were certainly in a disadvantage as Annonydeath could use Absolute Terror fields to protect him and Rei from Uni's attacks.

The only times that the AT field had failed was when Uni started using piercing shots that had wounded Rei in the thigh and nearly penetrated the hacker's own armor in the side once the bullets had broken through the field.

As for Black and Purple Hearts, they were both locked in a sword duel with the former unable to use much of her skills except for Tri-color Order because of the lack of space for further movement.

Despite being a fake, Purple Heart was still as tough as the real Neptune was and thus could take the hits as she was programmed to deal with Noire only and keep her from teaming up with her sister.

No one had noticed a certain petite figure that would become the game changer for this battle. "Mechanical Paradox!"

Suddenly, what seemed to be large arrows made of energy had hit the cages and broke it upon impact. Everyone had quit fighting to break the collapsing cage in order to escape.

Outside the cloud of dust that came out once the cage had collapsed completely, a small figure smirked as her theory was confirmed. 'I need to bail Lady Noire and Lady Uni out of this mess so they could support my future projects.'

Out loud, she added as she had raised her gear-motif staff. "Thunderstorm."

Immediately, the trio of enemies that had hidden themselves behind Annonydeath's AT Field was hit by a series of lightning that brought them down to the ground, all of them paralyzed.

Despite having all of them paralyzed by means of the series of lightning blasts, both Noire and Uni had remained cautious and let the newcomer approach them.

"I remember you," Uni then said upon seeing the mage/scientist. "5pb told me about having a bad ass scientist of a cousin that could do magic and even showed me your picture. Thanks for the help, by the way."

"I see that Lyrica has found a new friend," MAGES said while shaking the Candidate's hand before doing the same with CPU's. "So, are we going to arrest these three?"

"No, my instincts say that they may suddenly attack while arresting them." Black Heart then said with a shake of her head as she had gotten her long sword back on hand. "It's best that we prepare ourselves for another long fight."

"In that case, I'll heal both of you." MAGES said while casting Seraphic Angel. "Well then, let's wait for them to recover before we make our next move."

-oOo-

At the same time, Vert had reached Gargan City where Cave was firing her gun at the armored warriors and CPU White Heart that were either parrying her bullets or dodging them while attacking back. Nearby, Green Sister had also come out of hiding to help her sister and one of her bodyguards.

This was why the fake White Heart had left her two companions to fight off Green Heart in the air. Steamax was about to throw a ninja star at Green Sister only to parry Cave's Jilbalard with his own katana.

Affimax was about to help before Bouquet had forced him back with her bo staff stabbing the air near his face. Bouquet later told her friends that she had called the attack – "Hornet Stings" because it was like a swarm of hornets stinging an interloper.

In the air, Vert had used her advantage in agility to use Rainy Ranpatura to shower the fake White Heart with spear stabs.

Seeing that White Heart could not fight back as she was too busy dodging and getting enough distance from Vert for her to gain momentum, Green Heart had added Slyphet Spear in which the spear had gotten bigger and longer like a vine that pushed White Heart even further away while making further damage.

The fake goddess had fallen a bit because she was surprised by the speed of the consecutive attacks and thus could not raise her ax high enough to parry the strikes. Vert then chased her to finish her off with Spiral Spear in which she had slashed the fake in different directions before completing the move with a cross-slash.

The fake goddess then fell to the ground dead and slowly dissipating into particles before Vert herself had landed, panting while holding a scared Green Sister bridal style followed by Cave that had landed herself and was also panting.

Minutes earlier, Cave had thrown Bouquet in the air before whispering to herself. "Black Label."

She then shot her twin guns while spinning at high speed giving both Vert and Bouquet who had looked down a visual treat of the SBD operative looking like a playable character of a bullet hell game with all the bullets and spells hitting both members of Affimax despite being in different positions within the area.

Cave then snapped her fingers and suddenly explosions had engulfed both Affimojas and Steamax with the operative leaping into the air as a set up for the second part of her final attack.

She then summoned two bee-like creatures that appeared on her left and right sides that fired even more bullets and spells, showering the wounded mecha ninja and his boss with even more hurt.

Finally, both bee creatures had formed into dual cannons that Cave had used on both mecha suited enemies that ended up with a mushroom cloud of an explosion whose thermals and shockwaves both Vert and Cave had used to slowly land on the ground.

What Cave did not know was that what she had done to take out both members of Affimax especially Steamax would lead to their own near defeat a little later due to a now pissed off Rei Rights…in goddess form.

-oOo-

While all of this was going on, Neptune herself had arrived in Planeptune…specifically the cage where NTP stayed during the day. Histoire was already there along with some of the Elite Guards.

Once Neptune had gotten herself down beside the cage's opening, the tome had floated towards her, her face stained by tears. "She's gone, Neptune!"

"Where?" Neptune did not waste time or her breath as she wanted answers immediately. "How? Why?"

"We don't know," Histoire said while hugging the CPU and getting hugged in return. "As for why, it seemed that one of our co-workers had put some device on NTP's head and it went berserk, thus escaping and heading north. That's all we know."

"Did you have the guild as well as the military look for it?"

"Yes," the tome answered after wiping off some of her tears with her dress' sleeves while still hugging Neptune. "Two of our Air Force's F-16s were forced to engage NTP above Central Planeptune before crash landing as their planes' wings were heavily damaged in the fight, their pilots bailing out just in time. Even then, NTP was also injured and thus is stuck near the Lowee border."

"Alright, have the guild as well as the army contain it there with anything we've got." Neptune then said before turning around and running towards her waiting Interceptor. "If it is much too dangerous to take it down, you have my permission to kill it."

"Kill it?!" Histoire yelled in confusion. "We both loved that bird and so did the majority of the people, Neptune. We can't just kill something that would serve as this country's new mascot!"

"Histoire!" Neptune looked back at her Oracle, tears freely flowing from her eyes. "We need to do it for the safety of our people and even those of our neighbors. Whatever emotional investment we have for NTP should never overshadow that and if NTP would be willing to kill anyone…then I'll kill her myself, no hesitation and no questions asked."

With that said, Neptune had wiped away her tears with her left sleeve and got in the Interceptor. The said vehicle then roared as it left the area in search of the now wayward pet monster, before using a nearby ramp in order to switch to its jet mode on its way north.

-oOo-

At the location where NTP was tending to her wounds, the guild had gotten their best guild members – intelligence agent IF and contractual nurse – Compa to guard the wounded beast and wait for Neptune to arrive.

"When will she arrive?" the brunette was saying while keeping an eye at the creature that seemed to be preening itself while in truth it was tending to its wounds. "She should be here by now."

The slightly taller pink-haired girl was smoothing her tan-white wool sweater top and red plaid skirt before telling her partner. "I just got a chirp from Histoire; she said that Neptune is already on her way and is in quite a hurry for her to get the Interceptor in jet mode."

Just as Compa had finished talking, two people had suddenly shown up near NTP. Both figures were both recognizable for better and for worse. As it was IF had recognized both Arfoire of the Seven Sages and a Black Heart look-a-like being their new opponents.

IF had gotten her katars out with Compa materializing her giant syringe before Arfoire spoke up. "Why fight a losing battle? In between Black Heart and I here, you're already lost."

"We'll see about that," IF said before nodding at Compa so they could start their combined attack – Heart Force. "Ready, Compa?"

"Ready!"

But before the pair could even start, the Interceptor had come in firing its machine guns at the villains to keep it away from NTP. It then landed with Neptune coming out of the car, katana materialized and drawn out of its sheath.

"I have a deal for you and Black Bitch beside you," the Planeptune CPU said with venom dripping from her voice as she held the katana with both hands. "You either leave and stop using my pet or you'll be going to prison nepping black and blue."

"How about I take Option Three in which we kick your collective butts then take your bird and make clones of it?" Arfoire then said with a sneer. "You didn't even transform to your CPU form."

"I don't need my CPU form to deal with you and fake Noire over there," Neptune said with nods at the two guild members. "I have these two to help me, right?"

"Right," both IF and Compa answered since they did work together in some dangerous quests before and Neptune had seen enough from both of them to trust them enough as her back up in this battle. "You can count on us, Lady Neptune."

"Pfft…." Arfoire added with devious smile as she had readied her own staff with Black Heart gripping her long sword even tighter. "Your funeral."

"Keep these two creeps away from NTP," Neptune said before leaping into action. "Cross Combination!"

Black Heart had gone forward to meet Neptune's attack, leaving Arfoire to fire lightning on the other two guild agents. It was this moment that IF launched an attack of her own – Heaven Demon as did Compa – Compa Love Heart at the evil witch.

Neptune had slashed the Fake Black Heart a few times that was blocked by the fake goddess except for the final strike that took her down. Not done with her initial attack, she then yelled. "32-bit Mega Blade!"

A sword made of data then appeared in the air and stabbed the lying fake goddess before dissipating, Black Heart only convulsed at the given attack. Neptune then looked at how her friends were doing against Arfoire and again at NTP who seemed to be doing nothing more than preening her feathers.

Arfoire was having trouble both dodging and blocking the attacks that was done on her from multiple directions with the katars slicing Arfoire's clothes and even skin leaving scars all over her body. Not content, once IF had gotten far enough, she readied her second attack – Demonic Inferno.

In the time that IF had completed her chant, Compa had already completed her pink heart made of shares that she nudged with her Histoire Certified Holy Water towards Arfoire who was still standing up after all the slashes that the guild intelligence agent had to her.

As such, Arfoire had once again gone down at the attack. She then felt her body heat up as Demonic Inferno had taken effect and she was burned to a crisp by IF's magical attack.

Compa had also fired a small energy ball at the sky that grew larger and fired multiple beams at the now fallen witch. She then raised her giant syringe that had gotten the energy ball to fire a larger beam that had taken out Arfoire as the latter was still recovering from the damage brought to her by the last three attacks on her.

Black Heart was still fighting fit and had stood up to deal with more punishment with Neptune now transforming to fight evenly. The pair of goddesses then fought sword to sword with both IF and Compa giving each other SP chargers to recover their skill points.

Unfortunately for all involved, NTP's brainwashed mind was overcome by the device and she once again went berserk at the pair of guild agents on the ground as the goddesses had taken to the air.

This time, IF and Compa had nodded to each other before using their formation/coupling skill – Heart Force. Immediately, NTP was caught in the middle of IF's dark attack coming from below and Compa's Heart attack coming from above and was immediately weakened by such a powerful attack.

Purple Heart was distracted for only a second before Black Heart had somehow used Lacy Ribbons on her. The attack was a combination of kicks and slashes that Purple Heart had either dodged or blocked with her own sword.

Once the pair had separated, Neptune then said. "I guess I'll go all out on you as well. Neptune Break!"

Purple Heart then slammed the fake goddess with the flat of her sword upwards before following it up with a flurry of sword slashes that sliced skin and processor units alike.

Neptune then flew back a bit to switch sword hands even to the point of throwing the sword for a bit for her next moves that were even more powerful sword slashes with the last sending the fake goddess to the ground where she dissipated to particles.

As for IF and Compa, they were still hit by hurricane force winds that sent them flying if not for Neptune catching them in the air. Even the Interceptor was sent flying by the brief squall before it managed to get itself into jet mode and fly back, firing its guns and missiles as it did so.

NTP had suffered even more wounds and burns because of the vehicle's counterattack, softening her up for the finale.

Once Purple Heart had released IF and Compa, the brunette guild agent had fired magical spikes that rained on the poor creature before IF herself had slammed on her back with her katanas in front of her.

She then jumped off before adding. "I guess I'll give you this too." She then fired another energy wave in the form of crescent that ended the whole attack.

"Now that's what I call my Apocalypse Nova," IF said with a wide smile before noticing that Compa herself had landed and was readying her own final attack.

Said final attack - Bread Crumbs had the pink-haired nurse spinning cutely as sakura petals had appeared around her. Of course, Compa being Compa had lost her footing and fell on her butt.

This in turn had a beam fired off her syringe that formed a firework display of a purple heart with a green letter C in the middle. Neptune herself had blushed at the said firework's insinuation while IF had watched beams fired down at the poor monster below it followed by an even more beams hitting NTP as it was paralyzed by other beams.

Compa could only smile cutely as she rubbed the side of her head at her blooper just as both Purple Heart and IF had gone to her. She then tried a flying kiss that sent two hearts (a hollow one with a smaller full one inside) at the monster before NTP had taken the full brunt of the said attack as the heart had turned into an infernal pink blaze that consumed it.

Even then NTP was still trying to stand up even if all three girls were now telling her to give up. For a brief moment, there was clarity in the phoenix's green eyes that communicated to Neptune her last wish.

Purple Heart then understood before telling her combat companions (and sometime acquaintances). "NTP just told that unless we could kill her, she may cause even greater havoc. So, let's send her off with style."

"Right," IF said with tears in her eyes. "Operation Leafy Nep Major Damage!? is a go."

"R-right," Compa agreed while wiping away the tears in her eyes.

"Let's go." Neptune said before running to one side of NTP with the other two taking positions as well.

The three then made a triangle with NTP in the center before they yelled. "Operation Leafy Nep Major Damage!?"

Three pillars of energy had emerged from where the three girls stood, one purple, one pink, and one blue before the biggest one also purple had erupted from where NTP stood, killing the monster for good.

The three girls then fell to ground, exhausted at the whole fight. Compa then said. "I hope you don't mind giving you a nickname – Miss Neptune."

"After what we've been through, I certainly won't." Neptune, who had transformed once the battle was over, replied with a small smile. "So, fire away."

"Alright, to start of our new bonds of friendship, I dub you – Nep-Nep." The nurse then said before all three giggled. "I think it looks good on you."

"Yeah, I mean she called me Iffy." IF then said from Neptune's left. "So, if you ever need someone else for a shoulder to cry on, call us over. We'll be there in a jiffy."

It was then that a chirp had heard from Neptune's communicator. She then turned it on to see Blanc as White Heart flying over what seemed the mountains on the boundary between Planeptune, Lastation, and Lowee.

"Neptune, we need your help." Blanc said simply. "Vert, Bouquet, and Cave are in danger as Rei Rights had somehow awakened her goddess powers and is already on her way towards Leanbox right now. Noire is still engaging your fake counterpart and Uni was currently recuperating as does MAGES but would be following as soon as they are able."

"MAGES, huh?" IF then said while Blanc was still talking. "Must be there to do some scouting for materials."

"We'll be leaving soon, Blanc." Neptune said with a nod. "ETA in thirty minutes."

"Who's we?"

"With me are the strongest guild members of the Planeptune guild – IF and Compa." The Planeptune goddess answered with a smile full of pride. "They'll be riding my Interceptor towards the battle zone. By the way, where are they?"

"They're still in the Gargan City limits," White Heart answered tersely. "In that case, I'll have Nisa and the twins follow me by means of Lowee's new prototype aerial weapon."

"Alright, see you there." Neptune then said before closing the line. "IF, I need you and Compa in the Interceptor. It may still have more than enough juice to get to Gargan City then we'll have it refueled and recharged after the battle."

"How about you?" Compa was getting worried as Neptune would be wasting energy even though she just drank a can of NepBull and another can of SP Charger, one after the other. "You can't just fly there and still have enough energy to fight."

"Au contraire, my dear Iffy." Neptune then said with a wagging finger. "I have a third form that I could use to get there that would be powered not just by me, but a special material in my processor that uses the energy of the sun to provide extra power for that form alone. Observe."

The lilac-haired goddess then leapt in the air before transforming to a space fighter with glowing purple edges. The said fighter had sported two canards and two wings (also known a tandem wings), one of the pair of wings was swept forwards and the other was swept backwards with the backswept wings underneath the one that was forward swept.

HDD Neptune then made a loop before saying in her loudspeakers. "Get in and get the Interceptor on Autopilot. She'll follow me towards Leanbox."

The pair did so as HDD Neptune had continued on towards the south. The Interceptor then took off into the air and followed her owner diligently, blue flames gushing from its propelling nozzles at the back.

A few minutes in the air, the pair of aircraft was spotted by White Heart who then hitched a ride on her fellow goddess, grateful for the ride. Behind all three of them was Airwolf with its turbo thrusters ignited.

"I remember that game," Neptune then said in her loudspeakers. "It's fun, but the show's a lot better."

"I know," Blanc answered with a hint of a smile. "That's why I had it made as my personal prototype."

Chika was on the pilot's seat with Ram in the co-pilot seat along with Rom in the Engineering seat and Nisa at the back seat, the adventurer suffering some airsickness.

-oOo-

About half an hour earlier, Rei, Annonydeath, and Purple Heart had woken up from their lighting induced nap and slowly stood up despite the paid. The office girl then said. "That was pretty low especially for you, MAGES."

"In war, there is no rules." The blue-haired scientist/mage replied. "Also, that is my only attack against you as my other attack was made on your trap."

"That does make sense," Rei said that had gotten everyone's face firmly planted on the ground. "What?! It's logical, is it not?"

"You know what?!" The hacker finally yelled in frustration. "I've had it! I'm leaving!"

He then turned towards the door and added. "We'll let Purple Heart deal with Black Heart in a one on one battle. This battle isn't fun anymore."

"I-I'll join you," Rei then said as both Black and Purple Heart had busted the windows on their way towards the sky when she suddenly stood still as if in shock. "W-wait…Steamax, don't die….Nooooooooo!"

"Are you alright?" Uni asked in concern at the enemy. "We won't arrest you or anything."

Rei was shaking with anger as she thought she had lost her one and only love. "N-no, just leave NOW! Once she emerges, knock her down and arrest us."

"But…"

"No buts!" Rei was certainly losing control. "Just promise me that Steamax would live and I'll willingly go to prison once defeated. Promise me!"

"I will," Black Sister answered with tears now flowing through her eyes. "Let's go, MAGES."

"Thank you."

-oOo-

Black Sister had carried MAGES through the broken window and flew as far as possible to safety as the hacker had taken the time to escape. Behind them, they could clearly hear raucous laughter coming from the abandoned factory that blew up with a busty blue-haired female figure flying away from the destroyed factory.

"I'm coming, my darling!" The figure yelled, not caring if she was heard. "Please last a little longer."

Uni only let out a sigh of both relief and exasperation as she had let one of the villains go. Then again, even she doubted that she could take Rei on with that amount of share power.

MAGES then put a hand on Uni's left shoulder and said. "Neither of you wanted to hurt the other really and thus, we have to fulfill her wishes."

"Alright," Uni said before transforming back to her human form then opening a flap on her left glove. "Let's see. Ah, now I remember the password."

MAGES then watched the Lastation Goddess Candidate push some buttons on what seemed to be a numerical keypad, built in on her glove. "What are you doing?"

"Since I have to conserve my energy to fight Rei and carry you there at the same time, I got us a ride in one of my special rides along with Noire's." Uni was telling MAGES while pushing some more buttons. "They'll be here in five minutes max. I promise."

-oOo-

Up in the air, both Black Heart and Purple Heart had continued their duel. As both CPUs were only slashing, thrusting, and blocking, Black Heart was beginning to get bored and even tired at the impasse between her and the fake.

Thankfully for her, the fake Purple Heart had separated just far enough to charge up for a Victory Slash. To do so, the fake goddess had charged herself up with shares before rushing at Noire and slashing twice, forming a V.

Black Heart was hurt a bit at that attack that caught her off-guard. "Let's see you take this! Infinite Slash!"

Noire then charged even faster than Purple did and proceeded to slash the fake goddess as much as eleven times before coming back to where she had started and charged up her blade for a wind elemental attack for the last blow.

As with the others, Purple Heart had fallen into the ground and dissipated into particles. It was about that time that two grey jets had come in from the north. Both of which were polyhedral cropped delta configuration on its wings with bent wingtips, V-tails, canards, and dual air intakes.

The said jets had landed vertically, surprising the scientist/mage in Lastation having something advanced as its fighters.

Noire had correctly guessed what MAGES was thinking when she said after Uni had given her both a Nepbull and a SP Charger to drink with. "Nope, these are ours since they're also prototypes, but our Air Force would have these later on."

"Ah," MAGES said while nodding in understanding. "Well, if you're ready, let's go chase Rei Rights."

"Yeah," both Lastation CPU and Candidate said before they had boarded their own planes with MAGES. "Let's go."

-oOo-

A few minutes earlier while everyone was either engaged with a fake goddess (Noire) or already on their way (Neptune, Blanc, and company), Vert, Bouquet, and Cave were enjoying their rest as they had their fill of NepBull and SP Chargers.

"I wonder how the others are," Vert then asked before she heard a chirp from her communicator. "Yes?"

"Miss Vert, it's Uni." The Lastation candidate said in the screen that popped up. "Rei Rights is a goddess like us and she's on her way-"

The last part of the messaged was cut off as Cave suddenly pushed both Vert and Bouquet out of the way of a lightning bolt that slammed the ground where they stood.

The red-headed member of Leanbox Regal Regiment of Defense had pulled out her pistols and started shooting at the busty sky blue haired young woman with twice the hair accessories that she wore as a human trying to shock her back with lightning bolts out of her wand.

As for Vert and Bouquet, they had both transformed and flew towards the pompous and yet irrational goddess that was Rei. Bouquet had sped up in a burst of power and started to attack with her bo staff in different ways (Seven Heavens) that had gotten some hits on Rei while evaded in others.

Rei was about to shock the young candidate when Vert had gone on the offensive of her own. "Spiral Break!"

Vert then slashed and pierced Rei who could not evade or block the attacks as it was just too fast for her own eyes to follow. As her finale, Vert had finished off the series of attacks with a cross-slash.

Even then Rei could not be denied and whapped her opponent with her wand before flying towards Steamax who despite being unconscious was still breathing. Sighing with relief, Rei then said softly to herself "Well, let's end this with a bang."

She then healed herself before telling the other three that she was wanted to fight all goddesses one last time.

The trio were puzzled as to why Rei would choose such a bad decision, before Vert had put two and two together. 'I see, this is for Steamax's benefit.'

"Alright," Vert agreed while taking her SP Charger. "Bouquet, Cave, watch us from a safe distance."

"Are you sure?" Cave then asked her employer. "That character is plenty strong."

"Yeah, she shook off your most powerful attack like it didn't hurt her much." Bouquet then added with a nod.

"Yes, there's four of us anyway." Vert before looking straight at her sister. "And I don't think she could handle all four of us anyway."

"Good point."

As a sign of goodwill, Vert had even given Rei a can of NepBull and a can of SP Charger to prepare herself.

Soon, the two Fenrir advanced jets, Airwolf, the Interceptor, and HDD Neptune had landed with the goddesses either getting out of their rides or in Neptune's case, transforming back to human form.

Neptune then glanced at the enemy who had sat down while waiting for someone. "So…why is Rei sitting there doing nothing?"

"Oh that," Vert said with a shrug. "She wants to fight all four of us, that's all."

Blanc then noticed that Rei kept glancing at one of the men in their mech suits. 'I see. She does have someone to love, after all. Well then, we won't give as high a sentence as the others.'

It had taken half an hour for everyone to be sufficiently rested before everyone had gotten into position in the empty field.

"What do you say girls, let's go for that all or nothing attack I've thought of." Vert then said before looking at the other girls. "At least, we may finish this battle in one strike."

"As if I'd let myself be beaten in one blow," Rei boasted even though she knew that her newly discovered powers and abilities may be push her body to the limit as she had only used it just now before charging up her own staff. "In fact, I dare you to hit me with that 'attack' of yours."

Rei then fired multiple lightning strikes at the four who split up as they either charged at the enemy goddess or flew into position somewhere in the air.

Both Vert and Noire had charged ahead while evading the lighting strikes before getting multiple strikes that were either blocked or barely evaded by Rei. Even then, she was surprised by Blanc suddenly showing up in front of her before using her axe (that Rei barely blocked with her wand) to propel her in the air.

Rei managed to stop her uncontrolled flight by using her wings as impromptu air brakes before she was suddenly enclosed in a cube made of shares that she could not break out of.

Purple Heart then came slashing in through the cube at a downward angle and continued on to hit her and part of her wing before her sword had emerged at the bottom end.

Rei's left wing had disappeared at the damage and she fell to the ground with only her other wing keeping the right side of her body from getting a nasty bruise and possibly broken bones as well.

She weakly stood up as the left wing was restructured good as new. Rei knew that if she was not careful, she may find herself killed accidentally. As such, the newly revealed ancient goddess had weighed her options as fighting four CPUs simultaneously would be difficult since she was already wounded by the slashes of both Vert and Noire that had gotten through.

The fall did not help her either as she was still shaken by the impact. At best, she could light the CPUs up a few times before falling to their blows. 'Why not, at least I can go down in a blaze of glory.'

With that said, the Goddess of Tari had suddenly made a multiple lightning spell that had shocked all four CPUs at once. She had used the time to fully heal herself and flew once again to get some needed distance from the CPUs while firing even more lighting spells, one after the other.

The battle had gone towards the air with the CPUs attacking Rei from various directions with a mix of skills.

For instance, Black Heart had attacked Rei head on with Tornado Chain in which she had slashed dodging Rei before kicking her from behind only for Purple Heart to come charging at her slashing thrice with the third slash that was blocked only to send her flying towards White Heart who then sent her back to the ground with a right cross to the face.

Green Heart then finished her off with Inbetween Spear in which she had summoned multiple spears to strike at the fallen goddess with a ball of wind shares that had taken Rei down for the count.

Compa then revived the unconscious goddess by means of her skill Compa's CPR in which she had clasped her hands together in prayer as the space in between her hands glowing and the same glow had surrounded Rei before she could sit up. The goddesses had powered down to their human forms while the nurse was doing her stuff.

The pink haired nurse then followed it up by casting First Aid in the same way. She did the same thing to Steamax and Affimojas before the others had put handcuffs on them.

Rei then said to the goddess as she and her fellow cohorts were now led by Mister Chief and his men towards the Leanbox Regal Regiment of Defense's specially modified police vans to carry the captured villains to the maximum state prison near Hero City. "Thanks for not killing Steamax."

"No problem," Cave had surprised the rest by answering. "We're only here to take down your criminal activities, not your lives."

"Yeppers," Neptune happily chirped before covering her mouth in shock. Noire and Blanc could not help but give teasing grins as Vert could only shake her head at her fellow CPU's sudden change in character.

"Besides, we can lower your and Steamax's sentences as we saw that you are only playing along with the others instead of actually involving yourselves with them." Vert then added with a flick of her blonde hair. "And we could reduce it further if you would at least provide us with Annonydeath's hiding spaces."

"I doubt that anyone except for Anny himself could know as he even kept secrets from us," Affomijas then said. "All I know is that he has a lot of cracker friends here and in the PC continent who could give him safe haven in a pinch. And they're a tight bunch."

"Yes, I can agree with that statement." Neptune said with a serious look. "Some of them had tried to hack our security codes awhile back before Histy had tracked them down with me among those who busted their chops. They still managed to keep mum on their accomplices and fellow crackers despite stern interrogation."

"Well, I guess it's time for us to say goodbye." Blanc then said before noticing that the moon had now risen. "See you in the next expo."

With that said, everyone had gotten on their preferred vehicles with Nisa joining Vert and Bouquet on their limousine towards Leanbox City where she would stay for a while before heading back to Planeptune with a slight side trip to Lowee to pick up her luggage.

-oOo-

Once Neptune had gotten home with the Interceptor following her, she then exchanged cellphone numbers with both IF and Compa so they could talk when they were not busy. The Interceptor was then parked in Neptune's raised garage that was positioned near Neptune's living quarters with Neptune herself heading towards her room to rest a bit.

The Planeptune goddess then pressed the correct sequence of keys in the keypad and waited for the door to open. Once it slid open, Neptune then stumbled inside towards her bed before lying face down and letting out her innermost feelings upon the loss of her beloved pet that she had hid from her new friends.

"Uwaaaaahhhhhh!" The lonely goddess cried loudly, not caring if anyone heard her or not. "Whyyyy? Whyyyyy? Whyyyy?"

"Why did those motherfuckers had to place that mind-controlling device on my pet?" Neptune wailed in between sobs. "NTP hasn't done anything to them."

"I have to get IF to look for any factories or laboratories making that device and nep it to kingdom come!" The lilac-haired goddess promised to herself with a snarl. "I'll never let that device be made...ever."

Upon saying that, Neptune calmed down and lied on her back while remembering the times that she had flown in the night sky with NTP. The times she had gotten that live aerial interview with a Planeptune News Channel, the time they had flown with Vert, the time that they had flown with the Lowee sisters, that amusing time where both Lastation sisters had joined her and NTP in the sky above Lastation, the time she had joined NTP in greeting the orphaned children from monsters or in the fight against piracy with Histoire also hamming it up with them.

All of them had brought more tears to Neptune's eyes as NTP was more than a pet to her...she's family and no one could speak otherwise. 'I wish I could find another phoenix like you and I'll keep him or her safe from harm...I promise.'

-oOo-

A few days had passed since the take down of most of the remaining criminals of Gameindustri. As it was, only Annonydeath was still on the run, but it was only a matter of time before he too would be caught.

While everyone else had gotten back to normal, Neptune had sunk herself in both work and solitude when Histoire and her assistants had stopped sending the paperwork to Neptune's office once they noticed that the Planeptune CPU was working too much for her own health and sanity.

They had also contacted the gaming company presidents to talk to them so their goddess could take a rest. They said the same to the tri-media, so the latter only gave minimum live coverage to the goddess that even they think looked lost in thought during interviews and speeches.

Neptune then turned to quests, but her guild mates especially IF and Compa had taken the other quests once they noticed their new friend was taking far too many quests for her own good.

Having both of her trump cards taken, Neptune was forced to stay in her room and play classic console games that she seldom had the time to do so before. She had searched for walkthroughs and other guides for the games that she was currently playing.

Cue Noire finally getting her act together and rode on her Aston Martin with Uni to visit a friend of sorts. She had parked her car at the visitor's parking below the Basilicom proper and they took an elevator towards the Basilicom lobby after checking in with the male guard on duty.

Both Lastation goddesses was puzzled as to why the guard seemed to be trying to keep his composure when she told him that she was visiting the Planeptune CPU.

Once inside the basilicom, Noire then greeted the front deck receptionists and told them that she was there to visit Neptune with Uni noticing that everyone in the floor seemed to be in low spirits.

"Oh, thank goodness," one of the receptionists said with pure relief. "Lady Neptune seemed to be like a zombie recently. We all share her loss with the death of NTP and now we wish that someone could comfort her as she kept us from doing so."

"Wait, she didn't let Histoire comfort her?" The Lastation CPU then asked, puzzled as to why Neptune gone back to her old habits. "I'm sure that she would listen to her being her Oracle and closest friend."

"No, Ma'am." The second receptionist then said with a shake of her head. "Whenever anyone of us would try to comfort her even asking her to sit down with us for only a few minutes, she would only say that she's fine. And when some of us including Lady Histoire herself had pushed the issue a bit further, she would then be defensive and leave in a huff."

"Alright, leave it to us." The twin-tailed brunette goddess said with a clenched fist over her heart. "Neptune may be as stubborn as a mule, but I'm just as stubborn than she is and isn't the type to give up either and if it comes to blows, Uni's here with me."

"Thank you, Lady Noire." Both girls added as they had hugged the surprised goddess, bawling like babies. "Please bring back our goddess to us. We implore you, Lady Noire and Lady Uni."

"You can count on us," Noire then said while leaving her ID and getting her visitor ID from the still crying receptionists. "We'll transform Lonely Heart to Happy Heart."

"Good luck, Lady Noire and Lady Uni." The entire staff and even all of the guild members in the floor then said at the same time, some of them were themselves speaking while sobbing. "We're all counting on you."

The Lastation goddesses then rode the special elevator that led directly to Neptune's living quarters at the Penthouse floor.

-oOo-

The pair of Lastation CPU and Candidate had gotten off the elevator to a living room that seemed to have a gloomy atmosphere. At the moment, Histoire was out as she was in her office at the Guild HQ about ten floors below.

Uni still had to admit that despite the atmosphere, the living area still is clean and orderly. Uni then quipped. "You know what, Sis. I think you'd better do this solo."

"Why?" Noire was confused by her little sister's cold feet. "We still don't know if Neptune would go Purple Heart on us."

"I doubt that even Neptune would go Goddess mode in her own home just to kick us out," the Goddess Candidate explained with a neutral tone. "Besides, this place isn't large enough for a battle that requires a long-range support like me."

"You do have a point, Uni." The Lastation CPU said while rubbing her chin with her gloved right forefinger and thumb. "But where would you go?"

"I don't know," The younger twin tailed Candidate answered with a shrug. "I think I'll take a look around since this would be the first time I've ever been here."

"Yeah, just don't touch anything since there are some advanced stuff here than those back home."

"Got it, Sis." Uni then said while heading towards the kitchen. "I think I'll make some sandwiches for the three of us while you lovebirds are talking."

"Et tu, Uni?" Noire said, her eyes wide at the sudden teasing by her own sister.

The pig-tailed Candidate just shrugged her shoulders and smiled before adding. "Don't deny it, Sis. Anyone who has seen you and Neptune together would agree with me."

"I can't deny what didn't even happen," Noire stubbornly added, arms akimbo. "She and I are friends, that's all. I mean, if that's true then she and Histoire would be more of a match."

"Actually, Histoire was the first to notice it and told me."

"I give up." Noire said before continuing towards Neptune's bedroom that was down the hall from the right of the elevator. "But remember this, when I find you with somebody, I'll tease you a lot more."

"Bring it, Sis." Uni said as she actually wanted someone to be with as it sucked being the oldest Candidate in Gameindustri while getting some ham, cheese, and sliced bread in the refrigerator. 'I won't mind at all.'

-oOo-

The Lastation CPU had gotten to the door when she heard muffled voices. Intrigued, she had put her right ear on the door and listened.

"That's right, kiddo." Neptune's muffled voice was heard through the door frame. "You do the driving and I'll take care of the tin cans in our way."

'Huh, I thought that Neptune isn't taking any visitors.' Noire said before pushing the correct pin numbers at the keypad beside the door. 'I wonder who she is. I doubt it's Histoire though as she's in her office now.'

The door had slowly slid open so quietly that the Planeptune CPU did not even notice it. Noire had entered just as quietly and realized – "Neptune is actually alone."

Neptune did not even mind the whoosh of cold air coming out of the room as the air conditioner was still turned on as she continued to play the game in cooperative mode in silence.

The visitor then sat down on her friend's right and took the second controller in her hands. The pair then finished the stage in silence.

After the stage was over, Neptune then said in a whisper. "You know, I sometimes do this to prepare myself when I finally have a sister. But I didn't…I couldn't…"

The Planeptune CPU then embraced her fellow CPU before letting loose a cry that echoed through the now closed room while her body had shaken at the intensity of various emotions that finally found release.

Noire had put her own arms around the sobbing goddess and returned the hug, tears now freely flowing from her own eyes.

After the pair had stopped crying, Noire then said. "You're never alone, Neptune. You already have Histoire, your employees, your people, and now…. you have me and I promise I won't leave you and I'm sure neither would Histoire."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." Neptune replied while the pair had continued the embrace. 'This is certainly the happiest day of my life, nothing could certainly top this.'

-oOo-

In the hallway, Uni had put down the steel tray with two bread plates with two glasses of Iced tea over their cork coasters upon hearing the sobs of the two goddesses inside that was loud enough to be heard through the door.

Uni then felt like crying herself and thus thought to head somewhere else. She had taken the elevator and blindly pushed a button as she began to tear up.

This was why our featured CPU candidate had gone down in the floor where the Sharicite room at the end of the hallway from the elevator was mostly dark with only the monitors providing a weak light blue glow and yet Uni could hear some noises emanating from it.

'I wonder if there's a thief that got here before I do,' Uni then thought as she had materialized her Stealth Blaster. 'I need to call Histoire's attention, but that would take time and the thief could have gotten away. Alright, I'll take this POS down then call Histy.'

The Lastation goddess candidate then continued on towards the room with slow and deliberate footsteps that could barely make a squeak in the tiled floor. She then reached the room itself where she had leveled her rifle at figure that was barely visible in the soft glow of the monitors and the crystal in the middle of the room.

Uni had used her left hand to feel for the light switch as her right hand and arm had kept the weapon leveled at the perceived intruder. "Freeze…whoever you are!"

By chance, the room's light switch was flicked and both Uni and the other occupant of the room had to close their eyes as light had flooded the whole room and even part of the hallway beyond it.

Upon opening her red eyes, Uni had seen a girl around her age with purple hair reaching halfway to her back with a single D-pad hair clip on the left side of her head. She was wearing a white buttoned up sailor uniform being held together by the N-emblem. A pair of thigh high socks with pink and white strips along with medium sized boots that were similar in color to her uniform had completed the look.

The girl's eyes had opened, and Uni saw violet eyes and immediately realized who she had just seen. The girl also seemed to be shaking in fear and thus Uni had thought to calm the girl down.

"Hi, name's Uni and I'm the CPU candidate of Lastation." Uni said while raising her right hand for a handshake. "C'mon, I won't bite. I promise."

"H-hello, I-I'm Nepgear." The girl answered while shakily taking Uni's hand with her own and they both shook hands. "I-I was j-just born a few m-minutes ago."

"Well then, I'll be your mentor in all things about goddess candidates." Uni then said with a thump on her chest. "As a famous movie quote goes…'This is a start of a beautiful friendship.', Nepgear."

"Yes."

It was about that time that other than the hum of the machines, they could hear Histoire's voice coming from the hallway. "Is someone there?"

"We're here, Lady Historie." Uni answered with a cheery voice.

"Wait, you mean…"

"Yes, Lady Histoire." The Lastation goddess candidate added with a grin. "I'll introduce you to her once you get here."

And thus, Planeptune's CPU's wish had come true – a Candidate of her own. Too bad, Uni tend to pry her new best female friend whenever both she and Neptune tend to work a little too late in the day with Noire pulling the elder sister just to have fun.

"And Noire and I are still Lonely Hearts." Neptune proudly announced. "What do you say about that, Mister Author?"

The more things change, the more they still remained the same. Well folks, this is the end for now…Neptune and the others may return in Uni and Nepgear's (Mis)Adventures in…, maybe.

* * *

Congratulations for actually reaching this point of the story in which I explain some things. For example, why the heck did I have KITT, Airwolf, the Batmobile, the Interceptor, the Fenrir advanced jet aircrafts, and even an Aston Martin Vanquish in this story. Well, all of these vehicles did have a game (not all of them were good though, but at least they had a game) in the game consoles that our CPUs represents.

Then there's the Rokia cellphone that Vert had used to take a call. Well, Nokia and Microsoft did collaborate to make some smartphones and it was even referenced in the new OVA. Plus there's the unfamiliar metal hero show from Saban - VR Troopers which is from the 90s and featured the Metal Hero series -Metalder, Spielban, and in Season 2, Shaider as well.

And yes, I may continue this series with the newly introduced Nepgear and her mentor - Uni who will be having adventures or mis-adventures in various aspects of daily life with the former learning on how to be a perfect candidate for her always busy sister - Neptune, keyword on learning. Still, with Uni as Nepgear's mentor, things certainly won't be going as they were supposed to be.

For now, Familiar Phase Chapter Eight would be following this story either later this year or early next year. So, I'll see you all in Familiar Phases once again.


End file.
